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GOV. TRYOn’s REPORT ON THE PROVINCE OF NEW YORK.

cover.—A claim so long dormant, can hardly be expected under any circumstances to be now revivedwith a prospect of success, & whatever Judgment the Assembly of the Massachusetts Bay may haveformed certainly their present Governor had no opinion of its solidity, when at a late Meeting of theCommissaries of both Provinces at Hartford in 1773 he declared “ That it was a mere Ideal, Visionaryproject, in which he believed Nobody to be sincere,” and discovered an anxiety least it should inter-rupt the progress of the Treaty .

Question No. 3.

What is the size and extent of the Province , the number of Acres supposed to be contained therein;What part thereof is cultivated and improved ; and under what Title do the inhabitants hold theirpossessions 1

Answer.

The Extent of the Province from North to South is about 300 Statute miles. Nassau Island size and ex- (commonly called Long Island ) is situated to the South, its length from East to West, isprovince, about 150 miles, and its breadth on a medium fifteen miles; The breadth of the ProvinceNorthward of this Island is various. From the City of New York North about 20 miles up the Country,the breadth does not exceed 14 miles, and lies wholly on the East side of Hudson’s River, NewJersey being bounded by the opposite shore—From the 41 st Degree of Latitude the Province extendson both sides of that River ; soon widens to about 60 miles; and increases in breadth up to the 42‘ 1Degree, where it is about 80 miles wide; supposing the Western Boundary to extend to the linementioned in the Answer to the preceding Question No. 2, the extent from the 42 d Degree to theNorth Line of Massachusetts Bay (a distance of 49 miles) is about 456 miles, and from thence to the45 th Degree, it extends East & West on a Medium about 500 miles, and on the like supposition thenumber of square miles contained within this Province exclusive of the Lakes is 82,112 or 52,551,680acres, which is one fourth less than the number contained in the Province of Quebec .

Nassau or I^ong Island which contains Kings, Queens and Suffolk Counties.—Staten Island whichPans cultivated forms Richmond County and the Counties of New York , Westchester, Dutchess, Orangeand Ulster, are all well inhabited, and not many large Tracts of improveable land are left unculti-vated.—The County of Albany tho’ the Inhabitants are numerous, and the Lands in general underCultivation in the South, contains extensive and valuable Tracts unimproved in the North Part. 1 —Tryon County tlio’ thinly settled, as its extent is great, has many Inhabitants. 3 The cultivatedparts of Charlotte County are inconsiderable, compared with what remains to be settled and thesame may be remarked with respect to the Counties of Cumberland and Gloucester. 3 —In the Appen-dix is a list of the Inhabitants White and Black in the respective Counties, according to the returnsof their numbers in 1771, since which they are greatly augmented, but it is to be observed that thenew counties of Charlotte and Tryon were then part of Albany . 4

1 Albany County at this date included the present Counties of Greene, Columbia, Albany, Rensselaer, Schenectady andSaratoga.

2 This County was taken from Albany County in 1772, and named in honour of Wm. Tryon then the Governor of theProvince . In 1784 it was changed to that of Montgomery. When formed it embraced all that part of the State lying Westof a line running North & South nearly through the centre of the present County of Schoharie.— Campbell’s Annals of TryonCounty, New York 1831. p. 27.

3 Charlotte County embraced what now are Franklin, Clinton, Essex, Warren & Washington Counties in this State , andthe West half of the State of Vermont ; Cumberland & Gloucester lay on the West bank of the Connecticut river and ex-tended from Canada to the Massachusetts boundary ; the South line of the towns of Tunbridge, Strafford and Thetford beingthe division between the two. Westward they ran to the East bounds of Charlotte. Cumberland was erected in 1766 ;Gloucester in 177U, and Charlotte was taken from Albany in 1772, at the same time as Tryon.

4 For the Census table see ante p. 474.