I with pleasure comply with your request ; and will endeavour to furnish you with such information relative to the soil, climate, situation, and present state of the Genesee Country, as may enable you to judge of the propriety of making it the place of your future residence. From the following plain statement of facts, which have fallen within the sphere of ray own observation, you may be able to form some idea of the rapid growth of this part of the United States. Any apology for the plainness of , the style I consider unnecessary. It is useful information you are in quest of, and such only I shall attempt to impart.

In the year 1790, the Legislature of the State of New- York formed into a county, by the name of Ontario, all that part of the State lying west of a meridian line drawn from the eighty-second milestone on the Pennsylvania line to Lake Ontario. Within this is included the tract known by the name of the Genesee Country, bounded on the north by Lake Ontario, on the west by Niagara River and Lake Erie, on the south by Pennsylvania, and on the east by the counties of Tioga and Onondago.

The year previous to the formation of this county, Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, Esqrs. of New England, purchased from the State, and from the Seneca Indians, their right to that part of the country which lies between the meridian line above mentioned and the Genesee River; including, on the northernmost part of the country, a tract extending twelve miles west of the river, as will appear by the plan, forming a tract of country forty-five miles from east to \vest, and eighty-four from North to South, and containing about two million two hundred thousand acres of land.