Allegany to Appomattox: The Life and Letters of Private William Whitlock of the 188th New York Volunteers

1. Allegany Atmospheres

1 1 Allegany Atmospheres Upon entering the United States in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, many families were attracted to central and western New York. The heavily forested rolling hills and green river valleys, accompanied by the deep Finger Lakes carved out by glaciers long ago, provided a beautiful setting in which to raise a family. The region offered many opportunities to establish employment to support these pioneering families, including various products of agriculture for family and commercial use, forestry, and fishing. The mountains, streams, buildings, and people along this “Southern Tier,” extending into western New York along the present Route 17 (Interstate 86), speak of the region’s past to the tuned-in listener. John Whitlock, one of three sons of Reuben and Christina Whitlock of Monmouth, New Jersey (see the family tree in appendix A), apparently heard the call of central New York. After he married Mary Morris on December 26, 1793,1 they moved to a town at the tip of one of the Finger Lakes, Cayuga Lake, an area that would be named “Tompkins County” in 1817. Records indicate that the couple had five children when they moved, including twin boys, Thomas and Morris, who were born April 24, 1801, in New Jersey (Census Office 1810). This move was quite adventuresome because the area had been under the control of the Saponi and Tutelo tribes of the Cayuga Indians as 1. US Census 1810; “John Whitlock Household, Genoa Township” 1810. Series M252, roll 31, p. 80, National Archives Micropublication Series, National Archives, Washington, DC. 2  Allegany to Appomattox late as 1789 (Swanton 2003, 74). By an act of early Congress on September 16, 1776, the federal government offered bounty land warrants for veterans of the Revolutionary War. A veteran, if awarded a warrant, had to apply for a land patent, which granted ownership. These land warrants could be transferred to other individuals or sold (K. Powell 2012). Each state also offered land warrants for veterans but also to induce enlistments. In 1781, for example, New York’s legislature passed an act that would allow warrants for individuals who enlisted for three years. After restricting the warrants to any of five New York regiments in 1782, a “new military tract of land” was opened in central New York that included the area of what would be Ithaca, New York (Kammen 2004; K. Powell 2012). These land warrants served not only to reward veterans for their service to the new country, but to expand settlements farther west, where new natural resources could be found. It should be noted that these early land warrants were controlled by the wealthy, those connected to power and the newly formed federal government. In addition, early land warrants were confusing because the Native American tribes—the Iroquois in particular—sold land to other tribes that did not belong to them (Jortner 2012, 23). In 1784, the State of New York’s delegation to discuss land ownership with the Six Nations brought alcoholic beverages to give to the Iroquois. Federal agents seized the gifts but were themselves seized by the New York sheriffs (Jortner 2012, 52). Ithaca was a lively frontier town at the southern tip of Cayuga Lake and was known by various names, including “Cayuga City,” “Flats,” “Markle’s Flats,” “Sodom,” and “Sin City” (Dieckmann 2004). The latter two names arose owing to the town’s reputation for horse racing, gambling, Sabbath breaking, profanity, and the use of alcoholic beverages. This new tract, opened in 1782, was surveyed by the state surveyor General Simeon DeWitt. General DeWitt employed a clerk, Robert Harpur, who had a great knowledge of and fascination for Greek and Roman history. Mr. Harpur used this knowledge in advising his employer concerning possible county and town names. The Commission of Lands of New York State, chaired by Governor George Clinton, approved these suggestions, and as a consequence in Allegany Atmospheres  3 1804 the town was named “Ithaca” after the Island of Ithaki, where the Greek hero Ulysses lived (“The Military Tract” 2012). This Greek theme was also used in the naming of a county to the north of Ithaca along the western side of Cayuga Lake, Ulysses County, and of the town Ulysses, also on the west side of the lake. John and Mary Whitlock established a large family of thirteen children and joined the First Presbyterian Church in Ithaca on June 9, 1816.2...