Sept 8.
D H
Rathbone wrote me some time since
that he was willing to give up his lot
in Ripley & I so informed Burgess, the occupant.
Burgess has brought the advance money &
offers D B. & M for ^on^ the 50 as in question & on
5 as adjoining, containing his buildings
beside the road. It would be entirely
safe, I suppose to take it for the debt:
I omited to ask you whether you take this
off Rathbones hands. Shall I write Rathbone
& send him a deed, made to Burgess, to
execute, or can you find time to do it?
Van Hall sends me J. L. Ogdens opin-
ion that Van Hall is not competent to
give titles for lands sold prior to 20
Feb. You have I suppose a similar
letter. What is to be done? I suppose
that Ogdens opinion is given upon Van Halls
statementt of the case, not upon the facts.
To my common sense notions of land it
seems prepostorus to say that Van Hall
cannot sign these deeds. It will be
a sad stroke to us, if he cannot.

It will require the making over again of
some 300 deeds, Bonds, & mortgages and
bring a loss of $300 paid for recording
Mortgages, now superceded by others.
We have completed the making off of
the allotments of accounts to the new pro‑
prietors, in the land legers; from the schedules.
We have also made tables for each of the
prietors, of the lands such have for sale
together with descriptions, to correspond with
the number of each priece in the table
, after the manner of the table & description
we prepared & sent to you. Will you
have these tables & descriptions sent to
eather or all of the proprietors?
These schedules you will recollect
were prepared by Humprey ^&^ , copied by me.
H. dug out his materials as well as he
could prove various very obscure sources
& had but little time to do it in.
Multitudes of errors are found in them.
These errors, required examination to see
if they were errors, & it has been a
long job, & it will now require a nice
observance of justice to, balance these
errors, so as to make an equitable
division between the parties. I have not

been able to command time to do more than
make a little beginning in the Gen^l a/c you
requested, for settlement with the Propretors. I
expect Smith back in a day or two & will make
out this a/c the coming week.
I am told McClurg has just come in.
Within a day or two or three past. I have
seen many of your influential friends [hole]
& hereabouts. I am more than pleased [ with ]
what I hear. Baldwin has just ret[ urned from ]
N. Y. Connecticut, Saratoga, &c &c, & [ I ] [hole]
stand unrivalled: and gives the opinion [hole]
not only nominated, but elected. Kibbes say[ s ] [hole]
he [ does ] not feel at liberty to and you, b [hole]
[hole] tanely do you no harm. [hole]
& M[ any ] [ si ] milar opinions are given spon
taneously, given not only unasked, but upon
a voluntary advertency to the subject. "and so say
you all", indeed I am apt to think that this
Co would run ahead of its own ticket much
more than is by any one suspected. This intercourse
is also pleasing to me, also, as affording evidence
of my own influence in the community. If it is
a proper desire of the human heart, to wish to be
[ influenial ] in order to be useful among men, it
will be admissable in me to rejoice in some little
power among my fellow citizens, nor is it any matter
of humility to me, that I own this influence consid-
erably if not mainly to the interest the people hold
in you. The effect however is the same.
Gen^l. Farnsworth grows restive.

W. H. Seward Esq^r
Auburn
Westfield N.Y. SEP 9
B. J. Seward
Sept 8. 1838