When Morris bought the property, issues with the first survey were well known. The purchase deed stated, "A manifest error has been committed in the laying out and dividing the same, so that a new survey must be laid in order to correct the said error." Some accounts from early in the 20th century attribute errors discovered during the second survey to the primitive instruments used by the surveyors, but allegations of fraud were also made. A description of the survey in 1892 cast suspicion on an assistant surveyor named Jenkins, who was supposed to have altered the survey line to favor his employer, Peter Ryckman. He wanted to control the site of present-day Geneva. Ryckman had previously sought to buy the land directly from the Iroquois, but it was illegal under New York state law for him to buy land from the natives, and his contract was voided by the state. When a new survey was commissioned, Maxwell's survey became known as "The First Survey."