All of present-day Franklin County was once a part of either the Old Military Tract (OMT) or Macomb's Purchase. The townships of Burke, Chateaugay and Bellmont were within the Old Military Tract which was created in 1785. It reserved land to be granted to veterans of the American Revolution.

None of the land was ever claimed by Revolutionary War veterans and the “Shatagee Woods” stood vacant and unsettled.

In 1786, the state sold Township 6 (northwestern Clinton County), and Township 7 (northeastern Franklin County) were sold to James Caldwell of Albany, a wealthy land speculator. Plans were made to survey the two townships in preparation for subdivision and further land sales.

Chateaugay was actually first explored by the survey party sent to plot out Township 7 (the land the Town of Chateaugay currently occupies) in 1795. Prior to this survey party, the only footsteps that trod this land were Native American hunting parties and a few brave souls who passed through the territory trading with the Indians.

The firm of Cochran and Ransom was engaged to do the official survey of this section of the Old Military Tract in 1795 and to divide Township into ninety great lots. Included in the survey party were; Benjamin Roberts, of Ferrisburgh, Vermont and Nathan Beman, then living in Plattsburgh. Both Beman and Roberts were in their 30s when they joined the survey team. Beman’s occupation after the war is not known for sure, but apparently, he and Roberts had acquired some familiarity with surveying as part of their military service, and in 1795 both had been hired to lay out lots in northern New York in what was soon to become the town of Chateaugay.

This land was forty miles northwest of Plattsburgh and accessible via a narrow footpath through the woods. These two men were so very impressed with the land that their conversations soon led both to decide to return the next year to settle.

In February of 1796, Benjamin Roberts and one hired man made their way to what is now Chateaugay. They followed the path blazed by the survey team during the year before. Leaving Plattsburgh, the two men had ventured about five miles when they passed the last few isolated early homesteads (in the western portion of present-day Beekmantown), and plunged into the “Shatagee Woods” heading north and west. They returned to Plattsburgh in April, having made maple sugar in what would later be named Chateaugay.

Back in Plattsburgh, Roberts immediately gathered his family, household goods and five hired men and set out to return to Township 7 to establish a homestead and to live there permanently. He would soon be followed by his brother-in-law and fellow surveyor, Nathan Beman.

Beman was back and forth several times during the spring and summer, bringing supplies, one fully-laden oxen at a time. Each trip could take up to one week on the path leading to and from Plattsburgh, depending on weather and the amount of goods being carried on each trip. In addition to the trips, Beman built a house on land on the present-day Chasm Road.

He brought his family to Chateaugay in the fall. Tradition has it that when Jemima Beman arrived, her sister-in-law, Anna Roberts, was so glad to see her that she wept. Having been the only woman in Chateaugay since the spring, Mrs. Roberts was overjoyed to be joined by another wife and mother. The Roberts and Bemans were the first families to occupy Chateaugay.

The building of these first homesteads; Benjamin Roberts along the Marble River and Nathan Beman here, nearer the Bailey Brook and the Chateaugay River, marked the founding of the settlement first called “Four Corners”. As the land was heavily forested and no sawmills had yet been built, these first homes were undoubtedly constructed of hewn logs.

Within two years, about 150 souls had followed those two first families and were clearing land and establishing homes here in a wild and oftentimes inhospitable and deeply wooded frontier.

Slowly, the first grist and saw mills were built and a true settlement began to emerge.

These early years were difficult and fraught with dangers. The main objective of these earliest settlers was simple: survival. Growing their food, clearing land, and foraging and hunting in the vast stands of maple, beech, elm, ash, hemlock, basswood, pine and spruce occupied nearly all of their time.