A map published in 1894 shows how New York State was broken up like a patchwork quilt of land patents established in the colonial and post-revolutionary periods. A detail documents how the Town of Caroga combined parts of the Glen, Bleecker, and Lansing Patent, Mayfield Patent (granted by Great Britain in 1770), and the Kingsborough Patent (granted to Sir William Johnson in 1758). The map mistakenly identifies the patent at the southwestern portion of the town as the Magins Patent instead of the Lott and Lows Patent (purchased from the Indians in 1761).
The largest portion of the town is a part of the 89,000 acre Glen, Bleeker, and Lansing Patent that included parts of Johnstown, Bleecker, Caroga, and Stratford. Cornelius Glen, Barent Bleeker, and Abraham G. Lansing purchased this patent on April 4, 1793 at an auction in Albany. According to Cy Durey in his history of the town, they paid 18 cents per acre and promised to settle one family for every thousand acres of land within eight years from the time of purchase.
The New York State Archives possesses two early maps of the patent. The first is undated but probably from the end of the 18th century and the other claims to have been copied from an original and is dated July 15, 1807. The original map was perhaps prepared by Simeon De Witt, Surveyor General of New York. The 1807 map includes the detail of a tree marking the northwest corner of the Glen, Bleeker, and Lansing Patent and the northeast corner of the adjacent Jerseyfield Patent. The tree is accompanied with the statement: "This marked Tree stands in the Easternmost corner of Jerseyfield." Verplanck Colvin in his 1884 survey mentions a 1793 map attributed to Simeon DeWitt with the same inscription [Colvin, V., New York (State)., New York (State). Land Survey. (1884). Report on the Adirondack and state land surveys to the year 1884. Albany: State Printers, p. 51] . Colvin also includes the following statement by DeWitt referring to a spruce tree marking a corner: "beginning at the north-east corner of a tract of 94,000 acres of land granted to Henry Glen and others, commonly called Jerseyfield, at a spruce tree standing about two chains north from a small lake, and marked with a blaze and two notches below and three sides and the letters C. G.; B. B.; A. ; S. L., 1793." The C. G. refers to Cornelius Glen; B.B. identified as Barent Bleeker; and the "A. ; S.L. is possibly a transcription error for AGL or Abraham G. Lansing. 1793 documents the year the patent was acquired by the three men. Both maps document the boundaries of the patent and its subdivision into numbered Great Lots. The 1807 map also includes initials identifying the ownership of the individual Great Lots.
A detail of the first one shows how while it was probably created at the end of the eighteenth century, it served as a functional map that documented historical changes. On the left hand side of the detail can be seen descending obliquely in large block letters the name "Stratford." This shows how originally the western portion of Caroga was a part of the town of Stratford. A broken line in light brown ink apparently demarcates this boundary. While yellow lines apparently show the boundaries of Caroga in the Glen, Bleecker Patent and in a dark pen the name "Caroga" is written. These boundaries would have been drawn after April 11, 1842 when the New York State Legislature established the Town of Caroga comprised of portions of the towns of Stratford, Bleecker, and Johnstown.
Deeds to this day echo the subdivision of the land into patents. Deeds will identify the patent and the Great Lot. While the historical maps are hard to read, the following map documents the subdivision of the Caroga portion of the Glen, Bleecker, and Lansing Patent into its Great Lots.
