From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
The Holland Land Company was a purchaser of a large portion of the Western New York land tract known as the Phelps and Gorham Purchase. The Holland Land Company was a syndicate of Dutch investors, origianally Messrs P.&C. Eeghen, Rutger Schimmelpennick, Pieter Stadnitski, Nicholas and Jacob Van Staphorst, Hendrick Vollenhoven, and Willem & Jan Willink. Pieter Stadnitski served as President of the Holland Land Company. The syndicate hoped to sell the land rapidly at a great profit. Instead, for many years they had to put money into their purchase; surveying it, building roads and trying to make it attractive to settlers.
The syndicate purchased the land from Robert Morris, the richest man in the United States and "the financier of the American Revolution." Morris purchased this land -- some 3,750,000 acres -- in 1791 from Massachusetts, who had taken the land back from Phelps and Gorham after they were unable to pay the balance of the purchase price. He paid $333,333.33 for it.(!) He sold it to the Holland Land Company the following year, reserving for himself 500,000 acres in a tract twelve miles wide running from Pennsylvania to Lake Ontario, and known thereafter as the Morris Reserve.
Before Morris could give them title to it, however, it was necessary to quiet the Indian title. This was done by the 1797 Treaty of Big Tree. Big Tree was a place on the Genesee River near modern-day Geneseo, and south of Rochester, New York. Representatives of the Holland Land Company, of Robert Morris, of the Indians, along with a commissioner for the United States, gathered at Big Tree on the Genesee River in August, 1797 and negotiations began. Chiefs and Sachems present included Red Jacket, Cornplanter, Governor Blacksnake, Farmer's Brother and about 40 others. Red Jacket and Cornplanter spoke strongly against selling the land. They held out for "reservations," that is, land which the Indians would keep for their own use. After much discussion, the treaty was signed Sept. 15, 1797. The Senecas were to receive $100,000 for their rights to about 3.75 million acres, and they reserved about 200,000 acres for themselves.
The Holland Land Company hired a general agent, Theophile Cazenove, who was located in Philadelphia, to oversee land sale. In 1798, Joseph Ellicott was hired and he, along with his brother Benjamin and 130 men surveyed the purchase for the next three years at a total cost of $70,921.69 1/2. In November, 1800, Paolo "Paul" Busti succeeded Cazenove as General Agent. Busti was an Italian who had married one of the banker's sisters. He would serve until his death in 1824.
The Holland Land Company's main land office was opened (1801) in Batavia, New York. Batavia was selected because the Holland Lands were all constituted Genesee County and Batavia the county seat. Busti also appointed local agents at other offices in different parts of the Purchase. In about 1846, the affairs of the company in the United States were liquidated and the company dissolved.
The members of the Holland Land Company never travelled to America.
