 Trade in beaver hats spurred more exploration and settlement of the region.The most important event in the history of the colonial Catskills took place in the first decade of the 18th century during Queen Anne's War.In 1706 an ambitious speculator, major Johannes Hardenbergh, and his partner, Jacob Rutsen, petitioned the governor, Edward, Viscount Cornbury, for a land grant in the mountains of Ulster County, attempting to head off another petition by a group of Hurley farmers who wanted pasture in the area yet had not properly purchased the land from the local Indian tribes as the law required.