When Spencer Met Gorham

Map of the Phelps And Gorham Purchase

Source

"...Robert Morris bought a tract of 1,267,000 acres of land in western New York from Phelps and Gorham, partners, who had obtained title from the state of Massachusetts. Morris shortly sold his land to a syndicate of English capitalists, but his son, Thomas, nevertheless came to Canandaigua to reside in 1792, making the place his permanent home. At the time of his hospitality to Spencer he was both a new resident of Canandaigua and a young man, being about twenty-three years of age.

I entered the ferry-house where we found Mr. Nathaniel Gorham... .  Here we spent the night, and on the next morning after a very early breakfast set out on horseback (a separate horse being provided for me) for Canandaigua. Traveling rapidly and stopping only an hour at noon to bait our horses and take a luncheon of biscuit and cheese, we rested at night at an Indian village; and on the next day, dining at about twelve o'clock at a tavern near the west bank of the Genesee, arrived at Canandaigua a little after dark; thus performing a journey of nearly a hundred miles through the wilderness, along a footpath, in two days.  [Source - The Indian Captivity Of O. M. Spencer]