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Map of Western New York Showing Phelps & Gorham's Purchase (including the Mill Yard Tract) The Holland Purchase and the Morris Reserve

The Mill Yard Tract was a portion of the Phelps and Gorham Purchase of western New York State. It consisted of a 185,000 acre (749 km²) tract 12 miles (19 km) deep and 24 miles (39 km) long, abutting the west bank of the Genesee River.

On April 1, 1788, Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, both of Massachusetts, purchased all of Massachusetts' pre-emptive right to 6,000,000 acres (24,000 km²) in western New York State. This is roughly all territory west of Seneca Lake from Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania border, and all the way west to the Niagara River and Lake Erie. Massachusetts acquired this right under the Treaty of Hartford in 1786, when Massachusetts and New York settled their claims to the western New York area. Under the Treaty, Massachusetts would retain pre-emptive right to the land, while the area would be part of New York State and governed and taxed accordingly. The pre-emptive right was the paramount right to prevent anyone else from extinguishing the Indian title to this land, and obtaining fee ownership. For this right, Phelps and Gorham were to pay Massachusetts $1,000,000 in specie or in certain securities of Massachusetts then trading at about 20 cents on the dollar. The payments were to be in three equal annual installments. To own the land outright, however, they still had to extinguish the Indian title.

By act of the Massachusetts Legislature, approved April 1, 1788 (Laws and Res. 1786-87, c. 135, p. 900), it was provided that 'this Commonwealth doth hereby agree, to grant, sell & convey' to Oliver Phelps and Nathaniel Gorham, for a purchase price was $1,000,000, payable in three equal annual instalments of certain Massachusetts securities then worth about 20 cents on the dollar.

The various tribes, however, were unwilling at that time to relinquish title to any land west of the Genesee. Phelps and Gorham pleaded with the Chiefs and Sachems present at Buffalo Creek to allow them some land on the west bank of the Genesee so they could set up and gristmill and a sawmill. They finally agreed on a tract of land west of the Genesee, running south from Lake Ontario approximately 24 miles (39 km) and extending west from the river approximately 12 miles (19 km), with this western boundary paralleling the course of the Genesee, and containing 184,320 acres (746 km²). This became known as the "Mill Yard Tract". Within the Mill Yard Tract, Phelps and Gorham gifted 100 acres (0.4 km²) to Ebenezer "Indian" Allen at the high falls of the Genesee River so he could build a grist mill and sawmill. Allen's 100 acre (0.4 km²) tract became the nucleus of Rochester, New York.

It was later said that when the tribes realized the amount of land actually needed to operate the two mills, they were "astonished."