Cheesecocks Patent Explained

The Cheesecock, or Cheesecock Patent, was a vast tract of land that seven English colonists bought from Iroquois Indians in 1702.^[1] It included the southern part of what became Orange County, New York State, that now covers the towns of Monroe and Tuxedo and extends over part of Rockland County, which was separated from Orange County in 1798.

A variant of the name is still applied to Cheesecote Mountain, Rockland County.^[2] As derived from Unami/Delaware (Algonkian) language, its source was formerly reported as unclear,^[3] but William Bright, in Native American Placenames of the United States, suggests, for the related name Cheesequake (some miles south in New Jersey) chiskhake, "land that has been cleared".^[4]

The Patent was purchased from the Indians under terms of a land grant of Queen Anne, the warrant for its "drawing" signed in Common Council of the Colony of New York, 20 March 1707,^[5] confirmed by letters patent in the name of Queen Anne dated 25 March 1707. The patentees applied to Charles Clinton to make a survey of the tract and to allot it among the owners.^[6]

This survey was begun in 1735 and not finished until 1749. The lots were partitioned. 23 February 1737/38. The “marble covered field book” of the surveyor, Charles Clinton, contains a record of the partition of the lots of Cheesecocks among the owners in 1738, divided in sevenths: William Smith (2/7 interest); James Alexander (1/7 interest); Smith and Alexander (1/7 interest); Philip Livingston (1/7 interest); John Chambers (1/7 interest) and John McEvers and Catherine Symes (1/7 interest).

The lots were surveyed into lots approximately 150acres each, and a description of the quality of the land and the availability of water was included in the description of each lot.^[7] The town of Monroe, New York, was laid out in 1799, as Cheesecocks.

Clinton's survey laid out allotments four and a quarter miles southward of the line. "Clinton's Old Line", as it came to be called, occasioned disputes between New York, to the northeast, and New Jersey to the southwest, though Clinton's line was never intended as a division line.^[8] The division of the original tract among patentees is conserved in the New York State Library, among the Sterling Iron and Railway Company records.^[9]

See also

• Wawayanda Patent
• Holland Patent, New York

Notes and References

1. Book: Botshon, Ann, 1942-. Saving Sterling Forest : the epic struggle to preserve New York's highlands. 2007. State University of New York Press. 978-1-4294-7122-0. Albany. 9. 181017225.
2. William Bright, Native American Placenames of the United States (University of Oklahoma), 2004, s.v. "Cheesecote Mountain": "also written as 'Cheesecocks'." but compare Cheesequake in New Jersey.
3. Edward Manning Ruttenber, Footprints of the red man: Indian geographical names, 1906; William M. Beauchamp, "Aboriginal place names of New York" New York State Museum bulletin, May 1907, noted in Bright
4. Bright notes Kraft and Kraft, Selected Place Names of Lenapehoking, 1985.
5. New York (State). Council, Berthold Fernow and Arnold Johan Ferdinand Van Laer, eds.Calendar of Council Minutes 1668-1783 New York State Library Bulletin 1902.
6. http://www.orangecountygov.com/orgMain.asp?orgid=201&sID=&storyID=2483 paper read by Benjamin Moffatt, Jr., at the Historical Society of the Town of Warwick, 27 July 1914
7. http://www.fpcmonroe.org/history.html History of the First Presbyterian Church, of Monroe, New York.
8. [New-York Historical Society]
9. Web site: Sterling Iron and Railway Company Records, 1740-1918. New York State Library web site. New York State Library. 1 December 2014. SIRCfind.