Sally Ainse

Sally Ainse (also known as Sally Montour, Sara Montour, Sara Hands, Sara Hains, Sara Willson, and Sarah Hance She lived with Nicholas in an Oneida settlement near the Mohawk River. However, Ainse was unsuccessful in having the colonial government of New York honor her land claim. In 1772, Sir William Johnson rejected her Oneida deed and procured the land for a cartel of his friends. She regularly traveled between Michilimackinac, Detroit, and New York for trade and had a relationship with William Maxwell, the fort's commissary. She purchased a house and lot for 120 pounds New York Currency in 1778. The lot was sixteen feet wide, and the following year, Ainse bought the neighboring lot for 80 pounds New York Currency, making her lots a total of thirty-two feet wide. In the 1782 Detroit census, she was recorded as owning one female slave, an increased number of livestock, flour, and corn. In 1787, Ainse had sold her property in Detroit and had begun living on land she acquired in 1783 near present-day Chatham, Ontario. She brought at least one slave with her, who was old in 1789, and she likely brought more as she had had a house built, along with farms, an Indian corn field, and an orchard. In 1790, the Indian Department acquired the land from the Ojibwe in the McKee Purchase, though chief negotiator Alexander McKee refused to acknowledge that Ainse was the owner of the land even though the Ojibwe repeatedly stated Ainse's land was exempt from the purchase. Ainse continued to make legal attempts to have her ownership recognized in 1808, 1809, 1813, and 1815, when the Executive Council of Upper Canada claimed she was dead. Ainse left her property and moved to Amherstburg, Ontario. where she died in 1823.