Before there was Inlet I: Farrand Benedict, the Shedds and the Munns
PART ONE
On November 27, 1901, the Hamilton County Board of Supervisors unanimously passed an act that created a new town from northern Morehouse, with the South Branch of the Moose River dividing the two towns.
Afterwards, Inlet held its first town meeting on January 14, 1902.
Presently (2009), the Adirondack Park Agency reports that Inlet consists of 42,446 acres of which just under 4,000 acres is not state land.
But this narrative is about the over 6,000 acres in the northerly Part of Township 3 of the Moose River Tract surrounding the “Head of Fourth Lake,” as Inlet was formerly known, and the connections among the speculators who owned it prior to Inlet’s creation.
This square tract covers the lands from Fourth Lake to Seventh Lakes down to Limekiln Lake at its southwest corner.
After the Revolutionary War, New York and other states were deeply in debt and in need of cash.
So, legislation was enacted in 1786 that called for the “speedy sale of unappropriated lands” such as the present Adirondack Park region, instructing the state’s Surveyor General to lay out tracts and townships and to give public notice that the available lands were for sale.
In some cases, major tracts such as the Macomb Purchase were sold with the requirement that purchasers complete these surveys at their expense.
While millions of acres were patented and sold for purposes of industry, settlement and/or transportation, it was not until 1820 that the Moose River Tract, totally state owned at the time, was surveyed and mapped by Samuel B. Richardson.
It would be another twenty years before the Tract would be patented to individuals such as Marshall S. Shedd, Jr. and Farrand N. Benedict.
To be continued…
