Excerpt from Morris, New York 1773-1923 by Joyce Foote, 1970
Part 1: In this section, I will use the first part of this chapter from my mother’s book spanning from the acquisition of the land now known as Morris, New York through the end of the 1700s.
In 1768 Sir William Johnson secured from the Indians a treaty, part of which is known as the “Fort Stanwix Deed.” This conveyed the whole section of land now New York State and Pennsylvania to the King of England. This area was subsequently divided and land grants issued to individuals. One of these grants went to John Butler, one of Johnson’s deputies and later a Tory leader. Butler’s Patent included all lands in the present township of Morris from the northern reaches to a line about two miles below the present village of Morris. Butler later sold a portion of his holdings to Henry Hill and others who named their section “Hillington Tract of Butler’s Patent.” It is within this Tract that the present village of Morris lies.
Newspaper accounts provide some information about the early settlers of this area. The month of June 1773, brought Ebenezer Knapp and his family, Increase Thurston and his family and Benjamin Lull, sr., his wife, five sons, and a daughter to the valley of Tienuderrah (now Butternuts Creek). They marked a trail through the forest from Newtown Martin, a frontier settlement between Cooperstown and Cherry Valley, to a place a few miles north of the present village of Morris. Here, with a few hand tools – axes, cultivating tools, and the like – the Lulls cleared the land and began constructing their home. Their cabin was made of trees about a foot in diameter cut into lengths of twenty-four feet for the sides and sixteen feet for the ends. These logs were then flattened on two sides and placed one upon another with clay between them to seal the cracks. It is believed that the house was about 8 feet high. The roof was made of a log twenty-four feet long for a ridge with poles laid together to run from eaves to ridge, and this was covered with a thatch made from rushes. The house was heated, lighted and the cooking done by means of a large stone fireplace. Their home completed, the men then began the work of clearing and cultivating the land so they could plant corn, buckwheat, and other crops. They undoubtedly supplemented their food supply with fish from the stream and game from the surrounding forests. Two years later, in the spring of 1775, the Lull family secured title by purchasing this tract which they had cleared.
At this same time, the Knapps built their house across the Tienuderrah about half a mile downstream and the Thurstons built about two miles up the valley. These families formed the nucleus of the first settlement in the vicinity of what is now the village of Morris. They numbered 20 in all.
The first marriage in the settlement took place on March 6, 1776, when Joseph Lull took for his bride Martha Knapp.
Evidently life in the settlement went on rather peacefully until the outbreak of the Revolutionary War. In 1776, a party of men entered the settlement and demanded an oath of neutrality and the surrender of all weapons to the State. Not satisfied by this, the following year, 1777, a group of British patriots came into the settlement and demanded a promise that the inhabitants would not take up arms against the King of England.
The next year, 1778, two companies were sent from the garrison at Cherry Valley to confirm a suspicion that the settlers had violated their oath of allegiance to the King and were, in fact, supplying the Revolutionists with provisions. The community leaders were taken prisoner and tried in Cherry Valley, then interned in Albany. Before long, in September 1778, a band of Oneida Indians came to the settlement to burn, plunder and kidnap the remaining men. Little resistance was offered as several of the men were absent from their homes either by serving with the Continental Army or arrested by the British. Among the captives were the six Lull men (Benjamin and his five sons, Benjamin, jr., Joseph, Nathan, Caleb, and William). The youngest Lull son, William, was not more than 16 years old when captured. He was adopted into the family of Oneida chief, Grass Hopper, and was taken to Sacketts Harbor, thence down the Mohawk River to Schenectady. He ran away from his captors and escaped to Saratoga to join General Sullivan’s army where he became a member of the Third Regiment of the New York Continentals. A certificate from the Archivist at Albany gives his date of enlistment as October 1, 1778. William got a letter home to his father, Benjamin, who hired Elbert Eckert to take William’s place in the army. The two men were exchanged on March 5, 1779, and William returned home.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Lull and another woman, with two small children, left the settlement and made their way to Cherry Valley. The way was hard – filled with dangers of the enemy, inclement weather, and ruggedness of terrain – but the journey of about thirty-two miles was completed in two days. Shortly after, the men were released from their confinement in Albany.
When the Revolutionary War ended in 1783, Benjamin Lull with his wife and one son returned to their former home and remained alone through the winter. In 1784, those others who had been taken from their homes or had fled began to trickle back into the valley.
In June 1785, a treaty was secured between Governor Clinton and the Iroquois tribes in which the State of New York gained title to all the lands between the Unadilla and Chenango Rivers. With this treaty and the ones that followed it, the Iroquois territory was relinquished except for only a few areas set aside as reservations. These events opened this new territory to settlement.
In this same period, General Jacob Morris came to develop lands a few miles down the valley which his father, Lewis Morris, and his uncle, Richard Morris, had been awarded as reparation for the was damages to their estates in the Hudson Valley.
The census of 1790 shows few families here, but from 1790 to 1800 there was an influx of settlers from Connecticut, some from Vermont, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. These New Englanders were joined by aristocratic French exiles forced out of France by a mass revolt. They came by blazed trail; some on foot carrying an ace and all their personal belongings; some on horseback, the wife often riding behind on a pillion; and still others by ox team. The French, whose Royalist sympathies prompted them to name the place Louisville in honor of their former King Loius XVI who lost both his throne and his head, were probably the first to inhabit what is now the village of Morris. James and Vincent LeRay de Chaumont had purchased a large tract of land consisting of about 18,000 acres and it was to these lands that the French Immigrants were directed. Records indicate that among them were the Widow Rosseau and her three sons, and Francois Cockrell from Paris. Charles Franchot and two sons, Louis and Paschal, came from Chamonelly, France. Most of these early French settlers did not remain to become permanent settlers but moved on to other places.
At this time, all these lands were part of Montgomery County; Otsego County was established as a separate entity in 1791 with Jacob Morris as the first County Clerk. He served in this capacity until 1801. On February 5, 1796, Butternuts was set up as a township with Louis Franchot, Supervisor, and Hezekiah Dayton, Town Clerk.
The previous text was taken directly from the book. I made a few minor edits, but the content remains unchanged.