Hi - I did some reseach on Jefferson County for my diss, and found that most of the early in-migrants were either 2nd generation Yorkers from the Mohawk/Susquehanna river valleys, or migrants from Vermont (along with a few Canadians - both Fr and Eng). Have you looked at Don Meinig's historical geography section in John Thompson's Geography of NYS?

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Suzanne Etherington
NYSARA Region 6 Advisory Officer
Binghamton State Office Building - #1604
44 Hawley Street
Binghamton, NY  13901
voice: 607/721-8428
fax: 607/721-8431
email: [log in to unmask]
http://www.sara.nysed.gov


>>> [log in to unmask] 06/12 11:07 AM >>>
All this talk about rent wars makes me glad I just bought a house!

Seriously, though, I am aware that there were the famous anti-rent wars
were raging in the Van Rensselaer patroonship (1836-1850) but I have found
a migration and settlement pattern in central New York that makes me wonder
about earlier incidents of strife and earlier exodi (exoduses?) and from
the rent districts.  Since my copy of S.B. Kim's _Landlord and Tenant_ is
packed away and out of reach, I thought I had better ask the list!

The Holland Land Company tracts in central New York (Cazenovia
Establishment under John Lincklaen) were settled in the 1790s.  Fifteen
years later, in 1806 and 1807 I find a wave of people (30 or so families)
who hailed from Rensselaer County, NY coming to the area.  They came from
places like Pittstown, Petersburg, Berlin, Stephentown, and Hoosic, and
settled in scattered places in the Holland Purchase = present Cazenovia,
Nelson, DeRuyter, Linklaen, German, and Pitcher = and I suspect elsewhere
in the state)

I also find several from neighboring Saratoga, Columbia, and Albany Co.s.
Other folks were coming from MA and CT at the same time (1805-1807) so it
may also be that they were simply looking for better land in frontier
communities that had now been settled for 15 years old.

Was there some strife or distress in the years 1805, 1806, and 1807, or
were these second generation pioneers wanting to move on to better pastures?

        Dan W.