Rewind: July 15, 2025 – “The Jessup Brothers”

THE JESSUP BROTHERS

Mention has been made of the Totten and Crossfield Purchase.  The two brothers, Edward and Ebenezer Jessup had much to do with the project. – the first sale of extensive Adirondack lands.  They were the first big lumber operators in the Wilderness.  We still have the names of “Jessup’s Falls,” “Jessup’s Landing,” and “Jessup’s River,” which feeds into Indian Lake.  The Jessups had their origin in Stamford, Conn., and the two brothers moved into Dutchess County in 1744.  They acquired large holdings of land and next moved on to Albany and extended their business operations.

They were close friends of Sir William Johnson, and of Governor Dunmore and Governor Tryon.  (As mentioned before) Sir William Johnson as Superintendent of Indian Affairs for the British Crown, kept a close watch on land transactions between the while settlers and the Indians.  At the close of the French and Indian Wars in 1759, the area around Lake George and the upper Hudson was declared safe for settlers.  The Jessup Brothers acquired large land holdings through their connections with Sir William Johnson and Governor Tryon.

One of their first grants from the Crown was in 1770 on the Hudson River, about ten miles above Glens Falls.  Here they erected sawmills and a grist mill.  The rafted their logs down the Schroon River and the Hudson to the “Big Falls” which they called Jessup’s Falls.  There was a “Jessup’s Ferry,” and a “Jessup’s Landing,” as the logs had to be toted around the falls by teams.  At this site, now called Lake Luzerne, the Jessups with their mills, also erected homes for themselves.  Here tradition has it that they lived in elegance of the best provincial society, in log houses that were spacious and comfortable, well furnished, and they entertained on a royal scale.

The Jessup Brothers’ next large real estate venture was the Totten and Crossfield Purchase which was granted by the British Crown with the authorization of Sir William Johnson and Governor Tryon.  The Indian deed was confirmed in 1772 and the event of the signing took place at Johnson Hall (Amsterdam, NY) with Sir William Johnson presiding over the ceremonies between the Indians and the white men, with Governor Tryon as witness.  The price was 1,135 British pounds and was for 800,000 acres of Adirondack lands which later turned out to be 1,150,000 acres.  Ebenezer Jessup had in 1771 made an agreement with Governor Dunmore to remit to the British Crown or King George III the sum of 2,012 pounds.  In the allotment of this purchase in 1773 we find in the records that Joseph Jessup, Jr. had Township No. 8 and Ebenezer Jessup Township No. 17.  Ebenezer laid out Townships 1-40 and received in compensation the sum of twenty-five cents an acre.  Jessup was, with Archibald Campbell, the first great surveyor of the Adirondack lands. This tremendous tract was laid out in fifty townships of some 24,000 acres to each township.  An unusual feature of the survey was it slanted northwesterly and southeasterly instead of north and south.

The accuracy of the survey of the Totten and Crossfield Purchase in later years proved to be of great historical interest.  When Edward Litchfield, the wealthy hunter, acquired a tract of land near Tupper Lake, he became involved in a lawsuit with a Mr. George M. Sisson, who owned land south of Litchfield Park.  The action was a nominal one for trespass but the real intent of the suit was to prove up the north line of the famous Totten and Crossfield Purchase.  In the original Indian deed, the north line was stated as coming west from Crown Point, or rather west from ten miles north of Crown Point.  This line had been surveyed by Archibald Campbell in 1772.  In his field book Campbell had mentioned that the Indian chiefs went with him on the survey and that he and his Indians came to a “high hill” which gave them an extensive view to the east.  This was coupled with the fact that the “rum gave out” for the Indians and so the survey was not carried through to a completion.  Litchfield claimed in his suit that the north line was a mile and a quarter too far north.  But it was proven on a more complete investigation that Campbell had started from the northwest corner of the Macomb Purchase and ran the line east, and after going some thirty miles through the forest, he met another line run by an independent survey, made in the same year, coming fifty-five from the southeast, the end to mark the north boundary of the tract.  This was the survey made by Ebenezer Jessup.

The fact that these two survey lines met at a given point was a dramatic climax.  Three additional surveys were run and all established the north line of the Totten and Crossfield Purchase in the same location.  The surveys of 1772-1773 are most remarkable as they were made by chain through primitive forests.  This noted legal case was tried before Referee Henry T. Kellogg of Plattsburgh, and his decision was that the line between the Macomb Purchase and the Totten and Crossfield Purchase was correct when laid out in 1772.

The big deal with King George III was never consummated as the American Revolution broke out before the final details were completed.  The deal was revived in 1785 and Governor Clinton was petitioned to grant the claim.  We find some of the same names as appeared on the original patentees.  The Jessups had acquired previously some 40,000 acres of land and had been issues a patent in 1774, some of this lad was in Warren County, taking in Athol and Warrensburg.

The Jessups were loyalists, so that they lost all of their holdings in this country.  Their settlement at Jessup’s Falls was burned.  They gled to Canada at the outbreak of the American Revolution and fought with the British troops.  Major Edward Jessup settled after the war in Prescott which is opposite Ogdensburg on the St. Lawrence and his descendants still live in Canada.  Col. Ebenezer Jessup went to England after the war and he died in England.  Another prominent Jessup was Morris E. Jessup, the banker and philanthropist who was one of the men who started the movement for the preservation of the Adirondacks.  The family name is perpetuated at Williams College in Jessup Hall where the author lived when a student in college.

The written composition for this article was taken directly from the source material.

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SOURCES

Edward Jessup and His Descendants, by Rev. Henry Griswold

Jessup, by John Wilson and Son of Cambridge, 1877

Legal Documents at State Education Building, Albany

Donaldson’s History, Vol. 1, History of the Adirondacks