n the
cabinet of Revolutionary memorials kept at Washington's Head-Quarters
at Newburgh. He was for a time on Washington's staff; and his whole
record is that of a devoted patriot and a faithful soldier, at a time
when the country needed every heart and hand for its defence.

In 1789, the Indian titles to most of the lands in the State of New
York, having been extinguished, the Legislature provided for the
survey of a certain portion of these lands, already set apart for the
soldiers of the State, who had served in the war of the Revolution.
This tract embracing 1,680,000 acres, and denominated the Military
Tract, included the present counties of Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and
Cortland, also the larger part of Tompkins with portions of Oswego and
Wayne. It was surveyed into twenty-eight townships, containing each
one hundred lots of six hundred acres. Each private soldier and
non-commissioned officer had one lot assigned him. The officers
received larger shares in proportion to their rank. Colonel
Hardenbergh was appointed on this survey, in immediate association
with Moses Dewitt, brother of Simeon Dewitt, at the time
Surveyor-General of the State, and was occupied in this work during
the years 1789-90. His field books, neatly kept and carefully
preserved, are now in possession of the Cayuga County Historical
Society, one of several valuable donations from the family to the
Society's archives. The lands which fell to him on the assignment of
military bounties, were located in Onondaga, disposing of which, he
purchased lot Forty-Seven, within the present limits of Auburn, from
Ogden and Josiah Hoffman, and originally patented to Captain Thomas
Doughty also of the Second New York. The deed bears date Feb. 16,
1792, and the consideration was one hundred and eighty pounds N.Y.
currency. Colonel Hardenbergh was familiar as a surveyor with its
comparative advantages, for a settlement, and especially with its
superior water power, and had already indicated the lot on his map of
survey as a "good mill site." He came on to his lands the same year
(1792) bringing with him several negro slaves, and built a bark
shelter near the site of the present Hardenbergh mansion, and on the
spot where the City Hall now stands. He made a visit in the fall or
winter of that year, to Rosendale and was united in marriage to Mary
Bevier, also of one of the most substantial and prominent families of
that part of the State, and soon after returned t