Oliver Phelps (politician)
Oliver Phelps | |
---|---|
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from New York's 17th district | |
In office March 4, 1803 – March 3, 1805 | |
Preceded by | None; new seat |
Succeeded by | Silas Halsey |
Personal details | |
Born | Canandaigua, New York, U.S. | October 21, 1749
Resting place | Pioneer Cemetery, Canandaigua, New York |
Political party | Democratic-Republican |
Spouse | Mary Seymour |
Children | Oliver Leicester, Mary |
Occupation | Merchant, commissary, land speculator |
Profession | Judge, politician |
Oliver Phelps (October 21, 1749 – February 21, 1809) was an American politician. He was early in life a tavern keeper in Granville, Massachusetts. During the Revolution he was Deputy Commissary of the Continental Army and served until the end of the war. After the war ended, he was appointed a judge, was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, and became a land speculator in western New York state. A depressed real estate market forced him to sell most of his holdings.
Personal life
Phelps was born in Poquonock in the Connecticut Colony. His father, Thomas Phelps, died in Oliver's first year of life, and his mother was left to raise their seventeen children. Phelps took a job at age seven in a local store to help support his family.[1]
When he was 21 in 1770, Oliver and his young wife Mary moved to Suffield, where he apprenticed to a local merchant, and in 1770 the couple moved to Granville, where he opened his own store.[1]
Career
At the beginning of the
Land speculation
The connections he established during the Revolutionary War aided his efforts in forming in 1788 a syndicate with
On July 4–8, 1788 a council was held with chiefs of the Five Nations of Indian at Buffalo Creek.[5] Phelps was the active agent for the syndicate[1] and negotiated with the Indians to purchase their title to the land. The Indians considered themselves to be the owners of the land, but Phelps persuaded the Chiefs that since they had been allies to the defeated British during the Revolutionary War, and since the British had given up the lands in the 1783 peace treaty, the tribes could only expect to retain whatever lands the United States would allow them to keep.[6] Phelps and Gorham wanted to buy 2,600,000-acre (11,000 km2), but the Indians refused to sell the rights to any land west of the Genesee River. Phelps suggested that the Indians could take advantage of a grist mill to grind their maize which would relieve the women of the grinding work. The Indians asked how much land was needed for a grist mill, and Phelps suggested a section of land 20 miles (32 km) wide and 12 miles (19 km) deep, about 288 square miles (750 km2), along the western bank of the river.[7] Phelps and Gorham finally bought the rights to 494,000-acre (2,000 km2) including a tract on the west bank of the river later named Mill Yard Tract where they planned to locate a saw mill and grist mill. The Indians were later much amazed that so large a tract of land was needed for the grist mill.
They paid US$1 million (about £300,000), or less than 25 cents per acre, between 1787 and 1788.[8]
At first Phelps and Gorham thought they would make the site of current-day
Builds home in Suffield
After the purchase, Phelps returned to Suffield, Connecticut, and bought what was later named the Hatheway House from its builder Shem Burbank, who as a Tory sympathizer during the American Revolution had suffered financial difficulties afterward.[9] Phelps spent generously on furnishings for the home, hired servants, and added a wing to the home in 1794, a display of his wealth and an "architectural masterpiece" that still features original Paris-made wallpaper.[10]
He opened one of the first land sales offices in the U.S. in Suffield[8] and another in Canandaigua. During the next two years he and his partners sold 500,000-acre (2,000 km2) at a higher price to a number of buyers. But land sales failed to raise enough capital to meet their payment requirements, and in August 1790 they sold 1,276,569-acre (5,166.09 km2) to U.S. Senator Robert Morris of Pennsylvania, who Phelps had done business with during the Revolutionary War. Morris paid eight pence half penny or between 11 and 12 cents per acre, about half of what Phelps and Gorham had paid. They retained only two townships totaling 47,000-acre (190 km2) for themselves. Morris almost immediately sold the land to an English syndicate for £75,000 (about $333,000), netting a good profit.[4]
Phelps was appointed the first judge of Ontario County (1789–1793), even before he moved to Canandaigua in 1792. He built the first framed house in Canandaigua and a
Loses land holdings and home
Later in 1789, the value of the Massachusetts scrip had risen to par value and substantially inflated the cost to purchase the remaining 1,000,000-acre (4,000 km2) which they had not yet obtained title to from the Indians.[4] They gave up their contract for the land instead. Despite his remaining, vast land holdings, changing money values affected the mortgages held on the tracts of land and a depressed land market caused Phelps to get into financial difficulty. In August 1790, the reverses forced him to sell his Suffield home and his interest in the Hartford National Bank and Trust Co.
He continued to invest in land and by 1796 had purchased roughly a million acres of land along the Mississippi River. He also helped organize the Connecticut Land Company which for $1,200,000 bought all but the extreme western portion of the Connecticut Western Reserve in the Northwest Territory from the state of Connecticut. Phelps borrowed heavily to finance the company. In 1796, his creditors demanded payment.[3] Facing the possibility of debtors' prison, Phelps went into seclusion. In 1802 he moved to Canandaigua, New York, and he served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1803 to 1805.[1]
Personal life
He married Mary Seymour, daughter of Zachariah Seymour and Sarah (née Steele) Seymour. Together, they were the parents of a son and a daughter:[1]
- Oliver Leicester Phelps (1775–1813), who married Elizabeth "Betsy" Law Sherman, a daughter of William Sherman and granddaughter of founding father Roger Sherman.[12]
- Mary Phelps (1778–1859), who married Amasa Jackson, the first president of the Union Bank of New York; he was a son of General Battle of Lexington.[13]
Purchasers of his land had continued difficulty paying off the
Descendants
Through his daughter Mary, he was a grandfather of Harriet Jackson (1804–1868), who married John Albert Granger, son of
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Henry, Marian S. (February 25, 2000). "The Phelps-Gorham Purchase". Archived from the original on February 27, 2014. Retrieved December 31, 2012.
- ^ a b Osgood, Howard Lawrence (1891). The Title of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase. Rochester Historical Society. p. 33. Archived from the original on March 25, 2015.
- ^ a b "Oliver Phelps". Ohio Historical Society. Archived from the original on May 8, 2012. Retrieved December 28, 2012.
- ^ a b c d Milliken, Charles F. (1911). A History of Ontario County, New York and Its People Vol. 1. Lewis Historical Publishing Co. pp. 15. Retrieved January 25, 2008.
- ISSN 0035-7413. Archived from the original(PDF) on December 3, 2007. Retrieved January 5, 2008.
- ^ McKelvey, Blake (January 1939). "Rochester History" (PDF). Rochester Library. Archived (PDF) from the original on March 3, 2016. Retrieved December 28, 2012.
- ^ Shilling, Donovan A. "Rochester's Romantic Rogue: The Life and Times of Ebenezer Allan". The Crooked Lake Review. Archived from the original on July 22, 2012. Retrieved December 28, 2012.
- ^ a b c d "Oliver Phelps (1749-1809)". Archived from the original on February 11, 2012. Retrieved December 27, 2012.
- ^ "Phelps-Hatheway House & Garden". Archived from the original on March 12, 2013. Retrieved December 28, 2012.
- ^ "Hatheway House". Suffield Library. Archived from the original on August 17, 2013. Retrieved December 28, 2012.
- ISBN 978-0299161446.
- ^ a b Milliken, Charles F. (1911). A History of Ontario County, New York and Its People Vol. 1. Lewis Historical Publishing Co. pp. 15. Retrieved January 25, 2008.
- ^ Sons of the American Revolution New York State Society (1894). Yearbook of the Sons of the American Revolution New York State Society. p. 121. Retrieved May 6, 2018.
- New Haven, CT: Tuttle, Morehouse & Taylor Company. pp. 705–706. Retrieved May 6, 2018.
Further reading
- United States Congress. "Oliver Phelps (id: P000298)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.
External links
- Oliver Phelps at Find a Grave
- United States Congress. "Oliver Phelps (id: P000298)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.