Abe Bloodgood, Ulysses. Revolutionary War

"In 1788, eleven men from Kingston, New York came to the area with two Delaware people (Lenape) guides, to explore what they considered wilderness. The following year Jacob Yaple, Isaac Dumond, and Peter Hinepaw returned with their families and constructed log cabins.

 That same year Abraham Bloodgood of Albany obtained a patent from the state for 1,400 acres, which included all of the present downtown west of Tioga Street.

In 1790, the federal government and state began an official program to grant land in the area, known as the Central New York Military Tract, as payment for service to the American soldiers of the Revolutionary War, as the government was cash poor. Most local land titles trace back to these Revolutionary war grants."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ithaca,_New_York



"As part of this process, the Central New York Military Tract, which included northern Tompkins County, was surveyed by Simeon De Witt, Bloodgood's son-in-law. 


Simeon De Witt (December 25, 1756 – December 3, 1834) was Geographer and Surveyor General of the Continental Army during the American Revolution and Surveyor General of the State of New York for the fifty years from 1784 until his death.

De Witt was also the nephew of Governor George Clinton. The Commissioners of Lands of New York State (chairman Gov. George Clinton) met in 1790.

The Military Tract township in which proto-Ithaca was located was named the Town of Ulysses."

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Abraham Bloodgood
by
Stefan Bielinski


Abraham Bloodgood was born in Flushing, Long Island in 1742. He was the son of Francis and Mary Doughty Bloodgood. By the late 1760s, he had relocated to Albany - probably living with his older brother James Bloodgood.

By 1770, he was running a sloop on the Hudson River between Albany and New York and was carrying cargoes for Sir William Johnson and others.

 He was one of a few Albany skippers who ventured beyond the inland waterways. A cargo manifest for his sloop, the Olive Branch, which he sailed to the West Indies (Antigua) in November 1770, described the variety of exports he carried for a number of Albany-based businessmen.

In 1773, he married Albany native Elizabeth Van Valkenburgh - the widow of Thomas Lynott. Over the next two decades, seven of their children were baptized in the Albany Dutch church.

These Bloodgoods made their home along the Albany waterfront.

 Abraham contributed money to the crusade for American liberties, served as bailsman for several individuals during the war, and later was awarded a land bounty right in conjunction with the Albany County militia.

 His first ward property began appearing on city assessment rolls in 1779. In 1781, he was identified as an innkeeper. By 1790, his substantial brick home along lower State street was an Albany landmark!

After the war, he served in Albany fire companies, stood with other Albany residents in opposition to the Federal constitution, and was appointed "clerk" in Albany in 1797. Additionally, he owned a portion of the tract of land that later became the city of Ithaca. He was a slaveowner but began freeing them in 1794. In 1800, his Albany household still housed three slaves.

Abraham Bloodgood filed a will in May 1797. It left Elizabeth to administer his estate and provided for its partition after her death. He died in February 1807 and was buried from the Presbyterian church"

https://exhibitions.nysm.nysed.gov/albany/bios/b/abbgd7351.html