A large tract of land north of the Mohawk River and west and
south of the Hudson that was cut by the Kayaderosseras Creek as
it flowed into Saratoga Lake. This part of old Albany County
originally was patented between 1703 and 1708. But title was not
confirmed until 1768 and the lands were surveyed and partitioned
in 1771. Settlement dates to about 1772! The thirteen original
petitioners included the Attorney General, important New
Yorkers, Albany residents Nanning H. Visscher and Johannes
Beekman, and Albany native Rip Van Dam - then a Manhattan
businnessman and member of the governor's Council.
Contemporaries argued that the grant encompassed the lands north
of the Mohawk and West of the Hudson - a huge chunk of frontier
real estate. The patent ultimately encompassed more than 250,000
acres of land. Sir William Johnson is credited for having that
acreage reduced to 23,000 acres in 1760. The pending patent was
an issue that required special meetings at the Albany Congress
in 1754. A number of early Albany fa