Well, that number is a little high and the time frame a little early.
Indeed, most of the early settlers of norther New York, with the exception
of the Champlain Valley, were Vermonters. But realize that until after
1800, there were almost no non-native americans in Franklin and St.
Lawrence Counties and Clinton County after about ten miles west of the
lake. In fact, a veterans tract was laid out in western Clinton and eastern
Franklin Counties following the Revolutionary War as the preferred area in
central NY needed to have titles cleared up. In the about ten years this
land was offerred to vets, exactly zero claims were made. Then the central
NY land became available and many moved there.
Wayne Miller
Plattsburgh State U.

Bob Arnold writes:

> Something like 50,000 Vermonters settled along the top tier of New York State in the twenty years after the American Revolution.
>
> >>> [log in to unmask] 06/13/00 11:18AM >>>
> 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?
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> 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.