YANES, MosesABAA
ACCOUNTS OF COMPENSATION COLLECTED BY THE COMMISSIONERS JOY & BRISTOL OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK AND PAID TO THE NIAGARA SUFFERERS RELATED TO THEIR PROPERTY LOSSES DURING THE BURNING OF BUFFALO IN THE WAR OF 1812
1842Best.-Nr. 69781Buffalo NY 1842. Four manuscript documents 4 pp. each approx. 31 cm. each docketed on verso. All in very good condition legible one document more toned. A record of moneys collected by Joy and Bristol as Commissioners for the State of New York for distribution to the Niagara Sufferers. The documents include: 1 "Amts collected including what is due & collectable." caption title. This document signed by Joseph Clary and Moses Bristol Dec. 31 1830 records amounts collected by the commissioners plus the costs for the state less assignments sent to the comptroller dividends due Joy and Bristol etc. a "statement of the affairs of the Niagara Sufferers in a/c with the Comms. J & B." 2 "Statement of the affairs of the Niagara Suffers with Joy & Bristol." caption title. Calculations on the second document signed by Clary and Bristol on Dec. 16 1833 record the total amount collected by Joy and Bristol to be $69205.30 with cash paid out to the sufferers amounting to $62913.69 plus expenses of $350. Left in the hands of Joy was $2511.30; Bristol $1649.72; Clary $1396.36; plus smaller amounts to three other people. 3 "Statement of the affairs of the Niagara Suffers with Joy & Bristol." caption title. Document dated Buffalo Feb. 1 1836 and signed by Clary and Joy. The total amount collected by Bristol and Joy amounted to $69281.39 including $42464.60 assigned to the comptroller Nov. 30 1825; plus $16955.40 on Dec. 27 1833; and $2900.50 on March 28 1835. Additional amounts were left to be distributed or recorded as expenses or paid in commissions to Joy & Bristol. A detailed breakdown of how the "Niagara suffer business stands between T. Joy M. Bristol & J. Clary" is also given. 4 "Statement of the affairs of the Niagara Sufferers with Joy & Bristol." caption title. This fourth document is a neater copy of the Feb. 1 1836 document docketed on verso: "copied from J. Clary's statement March 7 1842" and signed by M. Bristol. During the War of 1812 incursions by the British on American soil had resulted in the burning of towns the loss of property and the impoverishment of citizens. On the Niagara frontier this included the village of Buffalo which was nearly burned to the ground on Dec. 30 1813. In a letter written by members of the Committee of Safety and Relief at Canandaigua on Jan. 8 1814 it was reported that "Niagara county and that part of Genesee which lies west of Batavia are completely depopulated. All the settlements in a section of country forty miles square and which contained more than twelve thousand souls are effectually broken up. Our roads are filled with people many of whom have been reduced from a state of competence and good prospects to the last degree of want and sorrow." see: Louis Babcock's book "The War of 1812 on the Niagara Frontier" Buffalo NY: 1927 pp.253-4 These "Niagara sufferers" were among the citizens of several states who petitioned the federal government for redress of losses suffered during the conflict. President Madison and Congress responded by establishing an Office of Claims in 1816 with Richard Bland Lee as its adminstrator "to solicit claims appraise lost property adjudicate cases and award restitution." According to a "Report of the Committee of Claims on the petition of the inhabitants of Niagara county New York sufferers by the enemy during the last war" dated Jan. 15 1821 and submitted to Congress these same "sufferers" in anticipation of federal relief began in 1816 to apply for loans from a newly established bank in the village of Buffalo. These citizens "being at that time in great want of means to rebuild their houses and repair their devastated estates were induced to apply to this bank for loans of money for that purpose and which loans they generally obtained by giving mortgages on their farms accompanied by honorary engagements that they should be repaid out of the moneys received by them under the law for their relief." New York also passed a law on April 15 1815 granting state loans to the sufferers. On Jan. 29 1822 the State of New York passed "An Act Granting relief to the sufferers on the Niagara frontier whose property was destroyed by the enemy during the late war." By this act the state trusting that the U.S. Congress would ultimately repay the sufferers in full for their losses as well as repay the state for their expenditures transferred to the commissioners 'the several debts due to the people of this state for monies loaned to the sufferers. also all monies due to this state on securities taken for the payment of the debt due from the Bank of Niagara. and all interest due on said several debts and on said bills." The commissioners were authorized to extend the term of five years for the debtors to repay their debts and to "take and receive the title to any lands or tenements mortgaged to the people of the state. and it shall be lawful for the commissioners to sell and in their own names convey any lands or tenements which under this act they may acquire." Once the federal monies were received by the state the residual due to the sufferers would be calculated. The commissioners were charged with accounting to the comptroller for the execution of the trust confided to them. Record is found in the New York newspapers of the day of several sales of mortgages taken out by "sufferers" in the years following the conclusion of the War of 1812 and transferred to Thaddeus Joy and Moses Bristol Acting Commissioners. Meanwhile the federal Office of Claims under Richard Lee was closed down for a time while investigations of its awards were carried on. Sectional rivalries also interfered with settlement claims by the federal government for the losses of private citizens. Citizens from the southern states whose slaves had been liberated by British forces had managed to get a proposal for their return or compensation included in the Treaty of Ghent which ended the war. Northern states appealed for some sort of equal calculations for their losses. According to Craig Hollander in his article "The Citizen Complains: Federal Compensation for Property Lost in the War of 1812" Law and History Review Vol. 38 No. 4 Nov. 2020 pp.659-698 the civilian sufferers "deftly created a sense of sectional aggrievement to garner additional support from their Northern colleagues." By as late as 1840 however many of the claims remained unresolved. In a letter to Thaddeus Joy written by Joseph Clary on Dec. 28 1840 Clary remarks that Dr. Moses Bristol "is very anxious to have the old Niagara Sufferers affairs brot to a close. It is now near seventeen years since the law authorizing a transfer of the debts to the sufferers was passed and it would seem very much like a neglect of duty for us to let the matter run this length of time without any effort to close it with the Comptroller." Clary continued to be concerned that Joy and Bristol would not be compensated for their work as commissioners. In Louis Babcock's book on the war he notes that "documents supplying further information on this aspect of the Niagara Sufferer's Claims are lacking so that for the present the matter is left untold." Babcock pp.318-19. unknown books
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