In 1779, an expedition against hostile Indian Nations checked aggressions by the English and Indians on the frontiers of New York and Pennsylvania and extended westward the dominion of the United States. At Owasco, at the crossing of the Owasco River by the great Iroquois Trail, on the 21st day of September, 1779, a detachment from the army of Major-General John Sullivan, commanded by Colonel Peter Gansevoort, passed through and bivouacked for the night. Gansevoort, the hero of the siege of Fort Stanwix in 1777, led a force of about 100 men and a detail of officers from the New York Line under special orders to the Mohawk and Albany. The great lot just north, Number 57, Aurelius in the military tract, was later drawn by Colonel Gansevoort in the balloting that distributed these lands to New York troops who served in the Revolutionary War.