Last week we left Charles C. Brodhead in Indian Pass, he having arrived almost fifty years prior to David Henderson’s well-documented venture.  As he chained through the pass Brodhead was slightly less than halfway through a survey of the line marking the boundary between the Totten and Crossfield Purchase, the Old Military Tract and the Macomb Purchase, the third and largest of the three great early Adirondack Tracts.

We have not previously encountered the Macomb Purchase and we will only touch upon it now.  The Macomb purchase lay to the west of the Military Tract and its southern boundary was supposed to be the northern boundary of Totten Crossfield.  But as we have seen there was no completed northern boundary for Totten Crossfield, thus the extent of the Macomb Purchase could not be properly calculated.  It was Brodhead’s job to rectify that and to connect to Archibald Campbell’s unfinished line.  As we will see, as astonishing as his High Peaks survey was, in the end he failed in this task.   » Continue Reading.