The Backbone Ridge is the name given to the hilltop that runs between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. Its history represents a microcosm of the larger economic, social, and political transformations that have taken place in American society. The Backbone Ridge History Group is a grass roots organization, established in 2010. Its purpose is to collect the history of the land and the people in the Backbone Ridge area. Once heavily populated with people, farms, and towns, the ridge was dramatically changed by the purchases of the Resettlement Administration a “New Deal” federal agency created in 1935.

The New Military Tract is a group of 28 towns in central New York State that were laid out and then surveyed into one-hundred 600-acre lots from 1789-91. The military lots were used to compensate New York soldiers for their service during the Revolutionary War. The lots were awarded by random ballots, one lot for each private and multiple lots for officers. There were various set-asides and reservations. The towns of Ovid, Hector and Ulysses are a part of the military tract.

The surveyors’ journals for these lots have been transcribed and their notes have been entered on a digital map by a group of volunteers. The BRHG received generous support of the Nelson B. Delavan Foundation for this project.

https://backbone-ridge.github.io/military-lots

This interactive map will allow you to follow the original survey lot lines of the towns encompassing the Backbone Ridge, located between Seneca and Cayuga Lakes. Eventually you will have access to views of the original manuscript, the transcription of each page and other information. The current edition of the map shows the original ballotee—the soldier who was awarded the lot – and identifies the person who settled the lot. It also provides the surveyors’ descriptions of the forest landscape along the survey lines and photos of the area described. The presentation will include information about the military tract by Judy Butterfield, a look at what it was like to be a surveyor on the Backbone in 1790 by June Szabo, and an explanation of the online map and its creation by Keith Jenkins.

Keith works at Cornell University, where he is the GIS and Geospatial Applications Librarian at Mann Library. He helps students, faculty, and staff at Cornell find geospatial data and to use software such as QGIS and ArcGIS to analyze their data and make maps. This project was conceived and started by Allan Buddle and Bob Kibbee, executed by volunteers for the BRHG.