The Lettered Lots and Lot PS are a part of the 4th Allotment of the New Petersburg Tract which was purposefully surveyed in a different manner to accommodate smaller lots for the village that was planned to grow up around the foot of Cazenovia Lake. The survey of this portion of the tract was the last to be surveyed and was completed in 1794. Like the rest of the New Petersburg lands, this area was surveyed by Joseph Annin for Peter Smith who had obtained a lease for the tract from the Oneida Indians. In 1795 the State of New York nullified Smith's illegal lease and a sale of the tract by the State of New York from the Oneidas. This transaction is but a small part of the now infamous (for it is invalid) sale of September 25, 1795. Because the land then was under state control but had been surveyed into lots and leased to individuals by Peter Smith, the sale of the lands to leaseholders had to be negotiated to give them title. This was accomplished in 1797 when the State sold the lots to the holders of the leases. By this time many of the lots had come into the possession of many different individuals. John Lincklaen had leased and then purchased selected lots across the New Petersburg Tract and many lots, especially in the eastern part of the Tract, had been taken up by individual settlers. The Lettered Lots were very much desired and many had been sold, including several to John Lincklaen who held them for a short while in speculation or for future development. As part of his grand plan for Cazenovia he also acquired all of the large Lot PS and soon sold it to settlers and secondary speculators.
The Lettered Lots of the 4th Allotment were set out at the time of the original survey by Joseph Annin in 1794. There purpose was to provide additional town lots to those laid out in the planned village or "City of Cazenovia" just to the south. John Lincklaen acquired the lease to several of the more valuable Lettered Lots and all of Lot PS so that he could have more control over how the village developed to the northward. The Lettered Lots acquired by Lincklaen are designated as Lots B, C, H, R1, S1, T1, V1 and W1. I have not been able to determine why Lincklaen purchased Lots B, C, H and W1, but Lots R1, S1, T1 and V1 are situated along Chittenango Creek and all contain valuable water power sites. I suspect that Lincklaen purchased Lettered Lot W1 because Annin's original map indicates that Chittenango Creek crossed this lot, but it has been found, as can be seen here, that the creek touches only the very corner of the lot.
Lot PS of the 4th Allotment is also an original
lot of the survey of 1794 and I believe that Peter Smith (thus the designation
as Lot "PS") had Joseph Annin create this as a large lot which could later
be subdivided as needed as the adjacent village of Cazenovia grew.
John Lincklaen's original intent was to have the village grow northward
along the lake shore, and not along Chittenango Creek as it eventually
did, and Smith may have worked with Lincklaen to create this large lot.
Lincklaen soon leased and then purchased all of Lot PS and soon subdivided
it into various sized and shaped parcels. Lot PS measures just one
mile by one-half mile and contains by survey 308 acres. Lincklaen's
land records indicate that between 1802 and 1810 he sold 16 parcels within
Lot PS containing a total of 296.72 acres, indicating that most of Lot
PS was quickly sold. It was through these secondary purchasers that
the area was further subdivided into building lots, a process that lasted
well into the middle of the 19th century. The largest of these parcels
were that purchased by Elisha Farnham and Jeremiah Whipple and each contained
a little over 53 acres. Farnham's purchase, made by him in 1802,
included most of the area between Sullivan Street and Chittenango Creek,
and for many years, before it was fully developed in the 1830s, this part
of the the community was known as "Farnham's Woods." I have not yet
found a detailed description of Farnham's or Whipple's land and I am not
exactly certain where Whipple's land was located although I believe it
was east of Chittenango Creek. Descriptions of only two parcels in
Lot PS have been found to date - that of a one acre purchased by Betsey
Picket at #58 Sullivan Street and a 9.09 acre parcel purchased by Josiah
Masters and Jabish N.M. Hurd which included much of the land between Hurd
and Sullivan Streets. Thomas Farr's 1 acre parcel at #9 Sullivan
Street is a third parcel whose location is known by reference in the Masters
and Hurd deed. A fourth parcel, containing 4.24 acres, was given
by John Lincklaen to the Presbyterian Church Trustees in 1808 (Mad. Co.
Deed A:542) and thus it is not among the sales listed in Lincklaen's land
books. These records account for 300.96 acres of Lot PS, leaving
just about 7 acres presently unaccounted for.
