ple's party
on the other. His administration was turbulent and unpopular. The
grant made to Cosby was one of a number of colonizing ventures
made by the British government during this period.

During the Seven Years' War a palisaded fort was erected on the south
bank of the Mohawk at the ford where Utica later sprang up. It was named
Ft. Schuyler in honor of Col. Peter Schuyler, an uncle of Gen. Philip
Schuyler of the Continental Army.

This should not be confused with the fort of the same name at
Rome which was built later. In order to distinguish the two, the
fort at Utica is often referred to as Old Ft. Schuyler.

The main trail of the Iroquois which became later the most used route to
the western country, crossed the Mohawk here and continued to Ft.
Stanwix, now Rome. A branch trail turned slightly to the southwest, then
more directly west to Oneida Castle. Cosby's Manor was sold at a
sheriff's sale for arrears of rent in 1792 and was bid in by Gen. Philip
Schuyler, Gen. John Bradstreet, John Morin Scott and others for L1387
(about 15 cents an acre). The first bridge across the Mohawk at Utica
was built in 1792. Soon after the close of the War of Independence, a
large number of new settlers arrived, most of them Germans from the
lower Mohawk Valley. About 1788 there was an influx of New Englanders,
among whom was Peter Smith (1768-1837), later a partner of John Jacob
Astor, and father of Gerrit Smith, a political and religious radical,
who was born here in 1797.

After graduating from Hamilton College in 1818, Gerrit Smith
(1797-1874) assumed the management of the vast estate of his
father, and greatly increased the family fortune, but he soon
turned his attention to reform and philanthropy. He first became
an active temperance worker, and then, after seeing an
anti-slavery meeting at Utica broken up by a mob, took up the
cause of abolition. He was one of the leading organizers of the
Liberty party (1840), and later was nominated for president by
various reform parties, notably the Free Soil Party (1848 &
1852). He was likewise the candidate of the anti-slavery party
for governor of New York in 1840 and 1858. In 1853 he was elected
to Congress as an independent, whereupon he issued an address
declaring that all men have an equal right to the soil; that wars
are brutal and unnecessary; that slavery could not be sanctioned
by any