HAMILTON COUNTY OHIO - History (published 1881) Ch 5 The Miami Purchase - pgs 34-44 *********************************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this electronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/oh/ *********************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Tina Hursh frog158@juno.com April 15, 2000 Transcribed by Shannan Busby *********************************************************************** Ch 5 Titles to Ohio - The Miami Purchase - pgs 34-44 *********************************************************************** History of Hamilton County Ohio with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches. Compiled by Henry A. Ford, A.M. and Mrs. Kate B. Ford, L.A. William & Co., Publishers; 1881. pages 34-45 ~pg 34~ CHAPTER V. TITLES TO OHIO. - THE MIAMI PURCHASE. Long after the occupancy by the Mound Builders ceased, but nearly a century and a half before that of the red man had closed in all parts of Ohio, came in the claim of the French to possession. The daring explorations of that renowned discoverer, Robert Cavalier DE LA SALLE, included, it is rather hesitatingly said, a journey from Lake Erie to the southward, over the portage to the Allegheny river, and thence down the Ohio to the falls at the present site of Louisville. Upon this reputed discovery was based the claim of France to domination of the territory thus traversed by her courageous knight-errant; and, although it was somewhat feebly disputed by Great Britain, the title was held good until the treaty of Paris, in 1763, when it, together with the title to all the rest of "New France" northwest of the Ohio, was vested in the British Empire. The Revolutionary war, culminating in the peace convention concluded at Paris in 1783, transferred the ownership thereof to the new American Republic. EXTINCTION OF THE INDIAN TITLES Upon the arrogant assumption that their prowess had subjected all the territory between the oceans, the Iroquois, or Six Nations, included in their claim, as we have seen, the present State of Ohio. The treaty of Fort Stanwix, October 22, 1784, in which the Indians were represented by the famous chiefs, CORNPLANTER and RED JACKET, and Congress by its commissioners, Oliver WOLCOTT, Richard BUTLER, and Arthur LEE, finally extinguished this. In January of the next year the treaty of Fort McIntosh, negotiated by General George Rogers CLARK, General Richard BUTLER, and Arthur LEE, for, the Government, and the chiefs of the Delaware, Wyandot, Ottawa, and Chippewa Indians, fixed the boundary of their tribal territories along the Cuyahoga river and the main branch of the Tuscarawas, to the fork of the latter near Fort Laurens, and thence westwardly to the portage between the headwaters of the Great Miami and the Miami of the Lakes (later the Maumee), down that stream to the lake, and thence along the south shore to the mouth of the Cuyahoga. Similar limitations for the Ohio tribes were prescribed by the treaty of Fort Finney, concluded with the Shawnees at the mouth of the Great Miami, within the present tract of Hamilton county, January 31, 1786, by Generals BUTLER, CLARK, and PARSONS; by that of Fort Harmar, arranged by Governor Arthur St. CLAIR, January 9, 1789; and the treaty of Greenville, August 3, 1795. Subsequent treaties and purchases extinguished all remaining Indian titles in the State. THE STATE CLAIMS. For some time before the close of the Revolutionary war, and thereafter, the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New York laid claims, under the old colonial grants, to parts of the territory now occupied by the commonwealth of Ohio. Virginia went further, and claimed the whole, as included in her title to all the land north- west of the Ohio, holding, she asserted, under the colonial charters granted by KING JAMES I in 1608,:1609, and 1611 and by right of conquest by General CLARK in 1778 and, 1779. The conflicting claims were composed without serious trouble. New York led the way, May 1, 1782, in ceding her rights therein to the United States. Virginia followed in a deed of cession, March 17, 1784, reserving, however, for grants to her Revolutionary soldiers, what has since been known as the "Virginia Military District," between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers. Massachusetts came next, in a resolution of November 13, 1784, authorizing her delegates in Congress to cede to the United States all her lands west of New York State. Connecticut closed the acts of cession in September, 1786, by, relinquishing all her claims west of the Western Reserve This grant was fitly characterized by the late Chief. Justice CHASE as ''the last tardy and reluctant sacrifice of State pretensions to the common good. THE LATER TITLES to the lands of Ohio were all derived, primarily, from the General Government. It was a condition in the terms of admission of Ohio as a State into the Federal Union, that the fee simple to all lands within her borders, especially those previously sold or granted, should vest in the United States. Under this stipulation, and by earlier grants or sales, divers companies, corporations, and persons have acquired title by grant or sale from the General Government. An unusual diversity, indeed, for a western State, has prevailed in this matter, as will be ~pg 35~ seen by the list of the most important classes into which the lands of Ohio are divided: Congress Lands, United States Military Lands, the Virginia Military District, the Western Reserve, the Fire Lands, the Ohio Company's Purchase on the Muskingum, SYMMES' Purchase (or the Miami), the Donation Tract, the Refugee Tract, the French Grant, DOLERMAN's Grant, ZANE's Grant, Canal Lands, Turnpike Lands, Maumee Road Lands, School Lands, College Lands, Ministerial Lands, Moravian Lands, and Salt Sections. The history of some of these is highly interesting; but it cannot be detailed here. The lands belonging to the present county of. Hamilton more immediately concern us. They belong, for the most part, to what is famous in Ohio land history as the Miami or SYMMES Purchase, in part also to the class designated as Congress Lands, and in part to THE VIRGINIA MILITARY DISTRICT. That portion of Hamilton county lying east of the Little Miami river, being the township of Anderson, is included among the Virginia Military lands. The General Assembly of the Old Dominion, at the session of October 20, 1783, passed an act authorizing its delegates in Congress to convey to the United States all the right and title of that commonwealth to the territory northwest of the Ohio river. Congress agreed. to accept this cession, with the stipulations that this vast tract should be formed into States containing each a suitable amount of territory, and that the States so formed should be distinctly Republican, and admitted members of the Federal Union, having the same rights of sovereignty and freedom as the other States. On the seventeenth of March following, the Hons. Thomas JEFFERSON, Arthur LEE, James MONROE, and Samuel HARDY, the Virginian delegates in Congress, conveyed to the United States "all right, title, and claim, as well as of jurisdiction, which, the said commonwealth hath to the territory, or tract of country, within the limits of the Virginia charter, situate, lying, and being northwest of the river Ohio." The act of cession contained, however, the following reservations: That in cue the quantity of good land on the southwest side of the Ohio, upon the waters of Cumberland river, and between the Great and Tennessee rivers, which have been reserved by law for the Virginia troops upon Continental establishment, should, from the North Carolina line, beating in further upon the Cumberland lands than was expected, prove insufficient for these legal bounties, the deficiency should be made up to the said troops in good lands, to be laid off between the rivers Scioto and Little Miami, on the northwest side of the river Ohio, in such proportions to them as have been engaged to them by the laws of Virginia. The land embraced in this reservation constitutes the Virginia Military district in Ohio, and is composed of the counties of Adams, Brown, Clinton, Clermont, Highland, Fayette, Madison, and Union, and portions of Scioto, Pike, Ross, Pickaway, Franklin, Delaware, Marion, Hardin, Logan, Clark, Greene, Champaign, Warren, and Hamilton counties. Congress passed an act authorizing the establishment of the reservation, and its location as defined by the legislature of Virginia, upon the report of the executive of that State that the suspected deficiency of good lands upon the waters of the Cumberland actually existed. The Virginia soldiers of the Continental line, who served in the Revolutionary war, were compensated in bounty awards out of these lands according to their rank, time of service, and other bases of claim. The course pursued in locating and patenting the bounty lands was as follows: The Secretary of War made to the Executive of Virginia a return of the names of such officers and soldiers as were by the State law entitled to them, and the governor issued warrants to the same. When these were located, a return of the surveys was made to the Secretary of State of the United States, the warrant was returned to the Virginia land office whence it issued, and a patent signed by the President obtained, which vested full ownership in the patentee or his grantees. When it was found, as often happened, that a survey included land previously located, the holder of the warrant was permitted to vacate his survey, or a part of it, and locate his warrant elsewhere. This provision, however, did not obviate much subsequent litigation, which is now mostly quieted. Dr. DRAKE, in his Picture of Cincinnati, published 1815, remarks that the interfering claims, up to that time, had "seldom produced litigation," which is a pleasant thing to remember, in view of the troubles that arose afterwards. Not only the soldier primarily, entitled to the warrant, but any heir or assignee of his, was entitled to location. Large numbers of these warrants came into the hands of the early surveyors and settlers, as General Nathaniel MASSIE, Duncan McARTHUR, Mr. SULLIVANT, and others, and were by them used in securing vast and valuable tracts in the district, The names of these gentlemen appear very frequently as original owners upon the maps of the townships and counties now lying within its territory; and some of them are in the list of original owners in Anderson township, which will be given in the history of that division of the county. On the same day on which the act was passed, Richard C. ANDERSON, a colonel in the Federal army, was appointed surveyor for the Continental line, by the officers named in the act and authorized to make such appointment as they saw fit. He opened his office at Louisville, for entries upon the Kentucky lands, on the twentieth of July, 1784. When the Kentucky grant was exhausted, he opened another office - in Chillicothe we believe - for entries. in the Ohio tract. He held this position up to the time of his death in October, 1826; and during the long period of his incumbency faithfully discharged its onerous duties. His son-in-law, Allen LATHAM, esq., of Chillicothe, was appointed surveyor some time after Colonel ANDERSON's death, and opened his office in the town named in July, 1829. The office is still held in that place by one of the surveyors under LATHAM, now the venerable E. P. KENDRICK, esq., though its duties have become little more than nominal. He has held the post, under Presidential appointment, for nearly forty years. The district was originally surveyed with extreme irregularity, no such thing as section or range lines being recognized, and warrants being located according to the eligibility of the lands or the taste or fancy of the proprietor. Nothing like ranges or townships was laid off until the work was done by the county commissioners in ~pg 36~ the several counties, when it became necessary to erect townships for civil purposes. Hence the irregular shape and utter want of uniformity in size of most of the town- ships in the Military District. CONGRESS LANDS. In this division, by far the largest known to the history of land titles in this State or the country at large, belongs all the territory in Hamilton lying west of the Great Miami river, viz.: Whitewater, Harrison, and Crosby townships. The immense tract of which these are part was surveyed and put into market at first by direct sales from the Treasury Department of the Government, as soon as practicable after the passage of an ordinance by Congress to that effect, in 1785, when the several States claiming ownership had all made deeds of cession to the United States and the title had been cleared and perfected by Indian treaties. By this ordinance the. initial steps of the survey were directed to be taken by the "Geographer of the United States," an official personage of no little importance, considering his talents and character and the extraordinary work he did, but whom history seems strangely to have neglected. A well directed attempt has been made by Colonel Charles WHITTLESEY, of Cleveland, to rescue the name and services of this useful public officer from oblivion; and take pleasure in presenting here in full his note upon the subject: An office was created by the Continental Congress about the middle of the Revolution, called the "Geographer of the United States." Its purpose is not now fully understood, but appears at first to have been military. The Government, and especially the army, needed a bureau of charts and of geographical knowledge, such as all civilized governments have, but of which it was then destitute. At the opening of the American rebellion Thomas HUTCHINS, of the colony of New Jersey, was a captain in the Sixtieth Regiment of Foot, which was raised in the colonies, forming one of the battalions known as the "Royal Americans." This regiment constituted part of Colonel BOUQUET'S command in the expeditions of 1763 and 1764, into the Ohio country against the Indians who lived upon the Muskingum river. HUTCHINS appears to have been a well educated man.1 BOUQUET made him engineer to the expedition, and in pursuance of this duty he surveyed and measured the route day by day, after it moved west of Pittsburgh. He was one of those frontier characters who combine fearlessness, intelligence, and a love of adventure, of whom there were at that time quite a number in the British army. HUTCHINS kept a journal of the march, with a map of the route showing the position of each encampment, which was published at Philadelphia in 1765, by the historian of the expedition, the Rev. William SMITH, of Philadelphia. While in the Ohio country, he conceived the plan of settling it by military colonies, as the best mode of securing peace with the Indians. The scheme was at the same time brilliant and practical. At the outbreak of the Revolution Captain HUTCHINS was in London, where he was soon afterwards suspected by the British agents of being in communication with Benjamin FRANKLIN at Paris. He was put in prison, and his fortune, amounting to about forty thousand dollars, confiscated. In 1778 he succeeded in reaching Savannah in Georgia, and was soon after made "Geographer" to the Confederation. There is very little information in regard to his functions until the new government had achieved its independence, and in 1784 acquired title to the western lands. By. the ordinance of May 20, 1785, the geographer is directed to commence the survey of Government lands on the north side of the Ohio river where the west line of Pennsylvania should cross the same. An east and west base line was to be run thence westerly through the territory, which Mr. HUTCHINS was required to superintend in person and to take the latitude of certain prominent points, especially the mouths of rivers. Longitude on land was not then attainable, for want of proper instruments. To that day the surveys of all countries had been made on a base line determined arbitrarily by roads, rivers, mountains, or coasts. The most simple of all modes, that of north and south and east and west lines, had never entered the minds of mathematicians; or, if it had, had never been reduced to practice. The plan provided for in the ordinance of 1785 is no doubt the invention of Mr. HUTCHINS, which was foreshadowed in his scheme for military settlements, promulgated in 1765. By this original mode of laying out land, the township lines were to be run in squares, on the true meridian, six miles apart, and at right angles, east and west, parallel to the equator. Within these squares the lots or sections are laid out, also in squares, thirty-six in number, of one mile on a side, each containing six hundred and forty acres. All our Government lands have been surveyed on that plan, from that day to this. Each section and township throughout this vast space is so marked as to he distinguished from any other. Wherever the comer and witness trees are standing, whoever visits them can at once determine the latitude and longitude of his position, and the distance from each base and meridian line. "HUTCHINS, as geographer, had power to appoint surveyors, who were first to run the lines of seven ranges of townships, next west of the Pennsylvania line, from the Ohio river to the forty-first parallel north latitude. It was accomplished during the years 1786-7, among hostile Indians, who, notwithstanding the land had been ceded to the United States, were wholly opposed to the occupation by white men. Colonel HARMAR's battalion, stationed on the Ohio and Alleghany rivers, was required to do duty in the woods as a guard with the surveyors. Otherwise the lines could not have been run. While HUTCHINS was zealously engaged in this work, having his office at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was called away from it by death early in the Year 1788. The office of geographer expired with him. Its duties were for a time transferred to the Treasury department and eventually the office of "Surveyor General of the Public Lands" was created. Very little is known of the private history of this modest patriot of the Revolution. Probably he left no descendants. The office he held during nearly the entire existence of the Continental Congress was a very important one, requiring a high order of mathematical talent, physical energy. and personal courage. As the author of the best system of public surveys now known, his name should in some way be made more conspicuous in our annals. Even the place where his remains were interred, has passed into forgetfulness. From his first journey in Ohio with Colonel BOUQUET, he foresaw and predicted that it would become a populous country. He lived barely long enough to see his favorite scheme of colonization commenced at Marietta by the soldiers of the Revolution. The office of "Surveyor-General of the Public Lands" was created by Act of Congress May 18, 1796, his duties at first being confined to the Northwestern Territory, but including after the purchase of Louisiana all the public domain west of the Mississippi and north of the thirty- third parallel of latitude. He appointed and instructed his own deputies, by whom the field surveys were executed. General Rufus PUTNAM, one of the Ohio company, and a pioneer at Marietta, was the first surveyor-general (1796), and his successors, during about half a century after the creation of the office, were Jared MANSFIELD, 1803; Josiah MEIGS, 1813; Edward TIFFIN, 1814; William LYTLE, 1829; Micajah T. WILLIAMS. 1831; Robert G. LYTLE, 1835, and Ezekiel S. HAINES, 1838. the office was at first kept in Marietta, but was removed to Ludlow's station, near Cincinnati, in 1805, by Mr. MANSFIELD, and was afterwards for a long time kept in Cincinnati. Very important work was done in the surveys by this gentleman. He was of English stock, his ancestors in this country settling at Boston in 1634, and at New Haven five years ,thereafter. He was a graduate of Yale college, and a thorough scientist for his day. Hon. E. D. MANSFIELD, his son, in his "Personal Memories," expresses the opinion that he was the only man appointed ~pg 37~ to public office solely on the ground of his scientific attainments. He was appointed by President JEFFERSON while a teacher at- the West Point Military academy, in 1803, more particularly to establish meridian lines, for want of which some of the surveys had gone sadly astray and made much trouble. After waiting some time for the importation of necessary instruments which could not then be procured on this side of the Atlantic, he established three. principal meridians in Ohio and Indiana, which have since been among the fixed bases of the surveys. General MANSFIELD retained the office until 1813, when he resigned, and after some engineering duty for the Government, resumed his professorship at West Point, which he retained for fifteen years. The land-office was established in Cincinnati under the law of 1800, creating the Cincinnati land district and establishing the offices of register and receiver. Similar offices were opened by the Government in Marietta, Steubenville, and Chillicothe. Before this time the Congress lands had been sold only in tracts of a section or more each. When William Henry HARRISON, afterward President HARRISON, became the first delegate of the Northwestern Territory in Congress, he, feeling the obstacle presented by this provision to the rapid settlement of the country, secured the passage of the law of 1800, which, among other enactments, directed a portion of the public lands to be subdivided and sold in tracts of three hundred and twenty acres, or a half section. The working of this beneficent provision was so satisfactory that, by a subsequent act, the subdivisions were offered in lots of one hundred and sixty acres each, at two dollars per acre, on a credit, if asked, of five years. Finally, at the instance of Senator Rufus KING, of New York, a law was passed for the offer of eighty acre tracts as the minimum, and the price was reduced from two dollars one dollar and twenty-five cents per acre, which has since been the standard rate. Under the credit system, however, admitted by the acts of 1800 and subsequently, an immense and most burdensome debt was created by the settlers on Congress lands. In 1820 it was ascertained that the amount due from purchasers at the western land offices aggregated twenty-two millions of dollars - a sum believed to exceed the total volume of money then circulating in the Western States, and one far beyond the ability of the delinquent settlers to pay. If Congress should grant no relief and the laws be enforced, nine-tenths of them would be ruined by the loss of their land and improvements. It was a time of great financial depression. Money could not be had, and no property could be sold for cash. Over half of the settlers north of the Ohio were indebted to the Government, and the feeling among them and their sympathizers in the south-western States was such that there was imminent danger of civil war if the Government should rigidly claim its own. Extension of time for payment would but increase the obligations and postpone the evil day; and it was seen that no practicable way was to be had out of the difficulty, except by the prompt and utter extinguishment of the debt as an act of generosity and policy, on the part of the Government in this exigency a conference of a number of leading business and professional citizens of Cincinnati resulted in the preparation by Judge BURNET - who has left, in substance, this history of the transaction - of a memorial to Congress setting forth the facts in the case. a thousand copies of this were speedily printed and sent, with a letter of explanation and instruction, to every city, village, and post office in the States and territories where public lands were then sold. In a comparatively short time they began to come back in large numbers, and very numerously signed. A copy sent to Mr. WORTHINGTON, then governor of the State, secured his approval and influence in reaching the object of the movement. At the next session of Congress the memorials were sent in, the desk of every western member and delegate being literally covered with them; and an act was consequently passed granting the desired relief. Under it the delinquent purchaser received in fee simple so much of the land he had entered as he had paid for, and had the privilege of relinquishing so much as he had not paid and could not pay for. If anything had been paid upon tracts relinquished, it might be credited upon tracts retained, so as to save important improvements. The settler was further relieved by this most beneficent enactment, in the release of all the back interest held by the Government against him. At the same session, in 1821, the King act before referred to, in relation to the public lands, was also passed. Originally, in the survey and sale of Congress lands, it was proposed to reserve one-seventh of the lands surveyed for the purpose of bounties to certain of the Continental troops; but this plan was presently abandoned, in favor of the grant of an entire tract in the central part of the State, containing one million five hundred and sixty thousand acres, and including the whole of the present county of Coshocton and parts of nine other counties. Four sections in each township were, however, reserved for future sale by the Government, and one section was set apart in each for the maintenance of the public schools.. The public territory immediately west. of the Great Miami was surveyed in 1799 and the following year, and the first sales under the act of Congress putting it into the market were held at the newly established land-office in Cincinnati, under direction of the receiver, General James FINDLAY, beginning the first Monday in April, 1801; and were by public venue. The minimum price, as before mentioned, was fixed by the act at two dollars an acre. Not much more than this was commonly bid. Jeremiah BUTTERFIELD. and associates, for example, by the bid of ten cents per acre more than the minimum, secured two thousand acres along the river, in the north part of this county, and south part of Butler, which is among the finest land in the Miami country, and is to-day worth at least two hundred thousand dollars. Five percent of the purchase money was to be deposited at the time of purchase, and to be forfeited if an additional sum making the whole amount equivalent to one-fourth of the price were not paid within forty days after the sale. Another fourth must be, paid within two years; the next within three; and the final installment with all accu- ~pg 38~ mulated interest within four years from the day of sale. The land-office was kept in Cincinnati for many years, or until the sales of Congress lands within its jurisdiction were very nearly completed. Colonel Israel LUDLOW was the first register, and General FINDLAY first receiver. The line of registers was continued by Charles KILIGORE, Daniel SYMMES (who was appointed after the expiration of his term as judge and served till near the time of his death, May 10, 1817), and Peyton S. SYMMES, who had his office in 1819 at the corner of Lawrence and Congress streets, while General FINDLAY, still receiver, had his at 30 North Front street, "in the hotel." The latter SYMMES held the post for many years-so lately as 1833, at least. Of the names of receivers after FINDLAY, we have only those of Andrew M. BAILEY, who was receiver in 1829; Morgan NEVILLE, receiver in 1831, and probably for some years before and after; and of Thomas HENDERSON, who was appointed July 28, 1838. pages 34-45 THE SCHOOL LANDS. Congress, by its early compact with the people, suggested in the ordinance of 1785, and embodied in the act of 1802, by which Ohio became a State, gave them one thirty-sixth part of the public domain northwest of the Ohio river for the education of their. children. The lands set apart for this-purpose, in this State, at least, were often appropriated by squatters, and through unwise, careless, and sometimes corrupt legislation, the squatters were actually vested with a proprietorship without consideration. Mr. ATWATER, in his history of Ohio, says- "Members of the legislature not unfrequently got acts passed and leases granted, either to themselves, to their relatives, or to their warm partisans. One senator contrived to get by such acts seven entire sections of land into either his own or his children's possessions From 1803 to 1820 the general assembly spent much time every session in passing acts relating to these lands, without advancing the cause of education to any appreciable extent. In 1821 the house of representatives in the State legislature appointed five of its members- Messrs. Caleb ATWATER, author of the history just cited, Lloyd TALBOT, James SHIELDS, Roswell MILLS, and Josiah BARBER - a committee on schools and school lands. This committee in due time made a report rehearsing the wrong management of the school land tract on behalf of the State, and warmly advocating the establishment of a system of education and the adoption of measures which would secure for the people the exercise of the rights which Congress intended they should possess. In compliance with the recommendation of the committee, the governor of the, State, in May, 1822, having been so authorized by the legislature, appointed seven commissioners of schools and school lands, viz.: Caleb ATWATER, the Revs. John COLLINS and James HOPE, D. D., Nathan GUILFORD, Hon. Ephraim CUTLER, Hon. Josiah BARBER, and James M. BELL, esq. The reason why seven persons were appointed was because there were as many descriptions of school lands in the State - i. e., section numbered sixteen in every township of the Congress lands and in SYMMES Purchase, and a similar proportion in the Virginia Military District, the Ohio Company's Purchase, the Refugee lands, and the Connecticut Reserve. For the three different grants represented in the lands of Hamilton county the commissioners were: For the Military lands, Mr. BELL; for the Congress lands, Mr. COLLINS; for the SYMMES Purchase, Mr. GUILFORD. The commission of seven was finally reduced, by various causes, to three members, Messrs. ATWATER, COLLINS, and HOPE, who performed the arduous duties incumbent upon them with little remuneration and (at the time) few thanks, though posterity has not been wholly unmindful of their valuable services. Mr. GUILFORD, of Cincinnati, always a warm-friend of education and an active promoter of the public school interest, though his name may not much appear in the later transactions of the commission, was specially prominent and influential in its formation and earlier work. The legislature of 1823 adjourned without having taken any definite action upon the report presented by the commission; but during the summer and autumn of the next year the subject of the sale of the school lands was warmly agitated, and the friends of this measure triumphed over the opposition so far as to elect large majorities to both branches of the general assembly in favor of its being made a law. The quantity of land consecrated to this purpose was carefully ascertained, and amounted in 1825 to a little more than half a million of acres, valued at something less than a million of dollars. A portion of these lands was sold by the State government, under due authority of Congress, and the remainder was leased, the avails of the leases and sales forming a part of the present school fund of the State. THE MIAMI PURCHASE. The time had come for planting the foundations of "the State first born of the ordinance of 1787." That organic act had called the attention of the New World to the great fertile wastes to the north and west of La Belle Riviere. The rich valleys and deep forests had been growing into knowledge and fame for more than a generation, and had even attracted the notice and prompted the official remark of members, of the British government. In 1750-1 Christopher GIST, as agent of the old Ohio Land Company, which had been organized a year or two before by some Englishmen, and the Washingtons, Lees, and other Virginians, accompanied by George CROGBAN, reached the Great Miami in his journey across the wilderness country from the present site of Pittsburgh, and explored its valley for about a hundred miles to its mouth. His companion had brought liberal presents from Pennsylvania to the Miamis, and in return obtained the concession to the English of the right to plant a fortified trading house at the junction of Loramie's creek and the Miami, in the country of the Piankeshaws, the subsequent county of Shelby - an enterprise carried into effect the next year, the stockade then erected being considered the first point of English settlement in Ohio. It was taken by the French and Indians in 1752, and in 1782 was plundered and destroyed by George Rogers CLARK, in his expedition against the ~pg 39~ Miami towns. The soldiers who returned from these incursions, and particularly the Virginians and Marylanders who accompanied Lord DUNMORE in his campaign to the Scioto valley in 1774, carried back glowing accounts of the beauty and fertility of the virgin country, and prepared the way for its subsequent colonization. The Miami valleys were carefully inspected by Daniel BOONE, when a captive among the Shawnees in 1778, and by the war parties led from Kentucky by BOWMAN and CLARK, against the Indians on the Little Miami and Mad rivers. In the autumn and winter of 1785, scarcely more than three years before the permanent occupancy began, General Richard BUTLER, with a company comprising PARSONS, ZANE, FINNEY, LEWIS, and others who were or became celebrities, voyaged on a tour of observation and official duty from Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh) to the mouth of the Great Miami, where they built a fort, dwelt for some months, and concluded an impartial treaty. In the years about this time, 1784-5-6, the way was cleared by Indian treaties and Congressional legislation - specially by the ordinance of May 20, 1785, providing for the survey and sale of the public lands - for the settlement of southern Ohio. The more renowned ordinance of July 13, 1787, erecting the Northwest Territory, and certain minor measures adopted by Congress at the same session, granting authority to the Government "board of treasury" to contract for the sale of the lands thus opened to civilization, completed the preliminaries necessary to regular and permanent settlement. A beginning of this was promptly made the next year, as is well known, by the settlement of the Ohio Company, mainly New Englanders, under the leadership of General Rufus PUTNAM, upon their purchase at and about the mouth of the Muskingum, where they founded-Marietta, named from the- hapless MARIE ANTOINETTE, at that time queen of France. Among those who had been attracted by a visit to the Miami country was one Captain (or Major) Benjamin STITES, of Redstone, Old Fort, now Brownsville, Pennsylvania, who was the prime mover in the inception of the Miami Purchase. STITES is, indeed, the real hero of the Purchase, as regards the original conception of it. He was, like many of the first colonists in the tract, a native of New Jersey, born at Scotch Plains, Essex county. While still young he emigrated to western Pennsylvania and settled on Ten Mile creek, in the present county of Green. Here he became a captain in the militia, and took an active part in the frontier struggles with the Indians. In the spring of 1787 he descended the Ohio from Redstone with a trading venture, in the shape of a flat-boat loaded with flour, whiskey, and other wares adapted to the river market of that day, and floated down to Limestone, or Limestone Point, now Maysville, Kentucky. Here his sales had small success, and he pushed with his goods into the interior at Washington, a few miles back, where he bad better fortune. While here the Indians came upon a marauding expedition into the neighborhood, and ran off some horses, taking other property with them. STITES was a man of great strength and courage, and accustomed to Indian warfare He at once volunteered to go with a party in pursuit. It was speedily raised, and he hastened with it across the country on the Indian trail until the river was reached, below where Augusta now stands, when they kept the Kentucky shore down to a point opposite the mouth of the Little Miami. Here it was ascertained that the red robbers had made a raft and crossed with their booty, evidently striking for their towns in the Miami country. The whites likewise made a raft, crossed themselves and their horses, and pursued the enemy to the vicinity of Old Chillicothe, a few miles north of Xenia, near the headwaters of the Little Miami, which it was deemed prudent not to approach closely, and the expedition retraced its steps. The return, through the valley was made more leisurely, and STITES had the better opportunity to observe its beauty and fertility. Before recrossing the Ohio he had decided to come back to the valley with a colony, and make a permanent settlement. The idea of the -Miami Purchase, in its rude outlines at least, was born in his sagacious mind. He closed his business at Washington as soon as possible and returned to his family. Some time afterwards he went to New Jersey for means with which to accomplish his intents; and there, at Trenton,2 met him whose name was to be forever more conspicuously identified with the memory of the Purchase than his, the active agent in the prosecution and consummation of the enterprise-Judge John Cleves SYMMES. Judge SYMMES held at this time an influential position as a member of Congress from the State of New Jersey. This celebrated Ohio pioneer was born July 21, 1742 at Riverhead, Long Island the oldest son of the Rev. Timothy and Mary (CLEVES) SYMMES. In early life he was engaged in teaching and land-surveying. He went to New Jersey some time before the war of the Revolution, in which he bore an active and honorable part, was chairman of the Sussex county Committee of Safety and colonel of a militia regiment in 1774, and took his regiment in March, 1776, to New York, and built fortifications, and was afterwards in the battle of Saratoga. He was presently elected delegate to the New Jersey State convention, and helped to draft the State constitution. During the remainder of the war he performed important military and civil services. In his own State he was successively lieutenant-governor, member of the council, and twelve years a judge of the supreme court; and was for two years a member of the Continental Congress. February 19, 1788, he was elected by Congress one of the judges of the Northwest Territory. He was thrice married, his last wife being a daughter of Governor LIVINGSTON, of New Jersey. He had two daughters as his sole offspring, one of whom, Maria, married Major Peyton SHORT, of Kentucky, and the other, Annie, became the consort of General William H. HARRISON. He was the founder of North Bend and South Bend, upon the Purchase secured by himself and colleagues, and, after a long and useful ~pg 40~ but troubled life, he died at Cincinnati February 26, 1814. In his later years he became so straitened in circumstances that he was compelled to assign his property to his sons-in-law. Some further notice of Judge SYMMES, including a copy of his remarkable will, may be found hereafter in the annals of Cincinnati He is fitly called by Mr. CIST, author of numerous books and miscellaneous writings upon Cincinnati and early local history, "the patriarch of the Miami wilderness," "the William PENN of the West," "the COLUMBUS of the woods." The compiler of Annals of the West has neatly applied to him the words (with slight variation) of R. J. MEIGS' poem, pronounced at Marietta during the Fourth of July celebration of 1778: To him glad Fancy brightest prospect shows, Rejoicing Nature all around him glows; Where late the savage, hid in ambush, lay, Or roamed the uncultured valleys for his prey, Her hardy gifts rough Industry extends, The groves bow down, the lofty forest bends. And see the spires of towns and cities rise, And domes and temples swell unto the skies. To Judge SYMMES Major STITES, probably for the sake, mainly, of SYMMES' influence in Congress and with the officers of the Government, proposed the purchase, for themselves and their associates, of a large body of land in the Miami country, the first eligible tract west of the Ohio company's purchase and the Virginia Military reservation. SYMMES is said to have visited the - land of promise, with five companions, no doubt in the summer of 1787, before deciding upon the proposal; and on his return began operations in his own name by the following memorial: To his excellency, the President of Congress: The petition of John Cleves SYMMES, of New Jersey, showeth: That your petitioner, encouraged by the resolutions of Congress of the condition twenty-third, and twenty-seventh of July last, stipulating, of a transfer of Federal lands on the Scioto and Muskingum rivers unto WINTHROP SARGENT and MANASSEH, CUTLER, esqrs., and their associates of New England, is induced, on behalf of the citizens of the United States westward of Connecticut, who also wish to become purchasers of Federal lands, to pray that the honorable the Congress will be pleased to direct that a contract be made by the honorable the commissioners of the treasury board with your petitioner, for himself and his associates, in all respects similar in form and matter to the said giant made to Messrs. SARGENT and CUTLER, differing only in quantity and place where. and, instead of two townships for the use of a university, that one only be assigned for the benefit of an academy; that by such transfer to your petitioner and his associates, on their complying with the terms of the sale, the fee may pass of all the lands lying within the following limits, viz: Beginning at the mouth of the Great Miami river, thence running up the Ohio to the mouth of the Little Miami river, thence up the main stream of the Little Miami river to the place where a due west line, to be continued from the western termination of the northern boundary line of the grant to Messrs. SARGENT, CUTLER & Company shall intersect the said Little Miami river, thence due west, continuing the said western line, to the place where the said line shall intersect the main branch or stream of the Great Miami river, thence down the Great Miami to the place of beginning. [Signed] JOHN C. SYMMES. New York, August 29, 1787. This was the same day, as a letter of the next June from the-treasury commissioners shows, when a favorable act of Congress was passed, in regard to contracts for the public lands. Another act, of similar character, was passed on the twenty-third of October, authorizing the, board of treasury to contract with anyone for tracts of not less than a million acres of western lands in a single purchase, the front of which on the Ohio, the Wabash, or other river, shall not exceed one-third the depth. Under this, as we shall see, Judge SYMMES presently submitted a second proposal. His associates in this undertaking were a number of friends of his, mostly, if not. all, Jerseymen, and a number of whom had been fellow officers in the Revolution. Chiefly notable among them was Captain Jonathan DAYTON, also a delegate in Congress from New Jersey, and subsequently speaker, under the constitution, of the house of representatives, and the gentleman from whom Dayton, Ohio, was named. He was the principal mouthpiece of the association (called the "East Jersey Company") in the long and complicated correspondence and negotiations with SYMMES which ensued. Their scheme looked to the acquisition of two millions of acres, which, in the imperfect knowledge then had of the country, was supposed to be included within the limits designated, though the survey ultimately showed but about six hundred thousand acres there. SYMMES drew up a plan for the management and disposal of the vast estate they expected to acquire, which was approved by his associates. His petition had been, on the second of October, as an endorsement upon it states, referred to the board of treasury to take order. The "board of treasury" was a small body of Government officials, representing the treasury department, and entrusted with the power of disposal of the public lands, which was afterwards vested in the Secretary of the Treasury, and finally in the general land office. The reference of SYMMES' petition to Congress to the board "to take order" gave them discretionary power in the premises; and they presently agreed to negotiate the sale to SYMMES and his associates. Meanwhile, so confident was the judge of the success of his application, that he soon began to advertise the lands and make conditional grants thereof On the twenty-sixth of November, 1787, he issued at Trenton, in pamphlet form, "Terms of Sale and Settlement of Miami Lands," a sort of elaborate circular addressed "to the respectable public." In this the advantages of the new country are suitably set forth. The price of the lands offered is fixed for the present at sixty-six and two-thirds cents; but, "after the first of November next, the price of the lands will be one dollar per acre, and after the first day of November next [ensuing], the price will rise higher, if the country is settled as fast as is expected." The certificates raised by this augmentation in the price shall be applied towards. the making of roads and bridges in the purchase. One penny proclamation, or the ninetieth part of a dollar, per acre, in specie or bills of credit of the States of New York, New Jersey, or Pennsylvania, must be paid by the purchaser at the time of purchasing the land-warrant. This fee of one penny per acre is to defray the expense of surveying the country into townships and lots, agreeably to the land ordinance. And one farthing proclamation, or the three hundred and. sixtieth part of a dollar, per acre, in specie or paper money aforesaid, to be paid by the purchaser to defray the expense of printing the land-warrants, purchasing ~pg 41~ proper books for record, accommodating and paying the register for his services in attending to the recording of entries, and other incidental charges which will necessarily accrue. It was further expressly stipulated as to "all purchasers of lands from the said John Cleves SYMMES, within his grant from the United States, of lands lying between the Great and Little Miami rivers, that if the locator (purchaser) shall neglect, for two years after location entered, to make a settlement on every section which he or they may have located, or to settle some other persons thereon, or in some station, who shall continue to improve the same for seven years. in such case one-sixth part of every such neglected section or quarter-part of a section, to be taken off in a regular square at the northeast corner, shall be forfeited, and shall revert back to the register for the time being, in trust so far as to authorize him to grant the same gratis to any volunteer settler who shall first make application to the register thereof; and the register shall proceed to make out a deed to such volunteer settler for such forfeited sixth part." In this pronunciamento SYMMES reserved to himself the entire township lowest in the neck between the Ohio and the Great Miami, and the three fractional parts of townships north, west, and south between that and the rivers. These he would pay for himself, and lay out "a handsome town plat" thereon. It was here, evidently, that the judge expected to locate the future metropolis of the Ohio, and where, indeed, he did made his pioneer settlement. The tract reserved included what afterwards became Miami, Green, and Delhi townships, in Hamilton county. He also proposed an appropriation or reservation, for the benefit of an academy or college, of one full township, to be laid off as nearly opposite to the mouth of the Licking river as an entire township might be found eligible in respect to soil and situation. Mr. SYMMES likewise began the issue of certificates or "Miami land warrants," the first of which, date of December 17, 1787, authorizing the location of six hundred .and forty acres in the Purchase, was issued to Mayor STITES, and seems to have been used by him at the point betwixt the mouth of the Little Miami and the Ohio in the pint," in securing the tract upon which he afterwards set down the first stakes of Columbia. STITES does not appear in the history of the Purchase thereafter, except as a pioneer settler and prominent citizen at Columbia. He had, however, a liberal arrangement with SYMMES, by which he was entitled to locate ten thousand acres in the Purchase, as near as might be about the mouth of the Little Miami. These, however, as we shall see, he was in imminent danger of losing some time after, by the determined effort made to compel SYMMES to fix his eastern boundary upon a line drawn northeastward from a point on the Ohio twenty miles above the mouth of the Great Miami. On the eleventh of June following SYMMES addressed another letter to the board of treasury, reciting the difficulties he had experienced in arranging credits with "the late Jersey line" - the soldiers of the New Jersey contingent in the war of the Revolution - in regard to their bounty lands, so as to help his first payment on the expected contract for the Purchase, and asking a new contract "for a part of the same lands of one million of acres fronting on the Ohio and extending inland from the Ohio between the Great Miami river and the Little Miami river, the whole breadth of the country from river to river, so far as to include on an east and west rear line one million acres, exclusive of the five reserved sections in every township, as directed in the ordinance of the twentieth of May, 1785, and that the present grant be made on the principles laid down by the resolution of Congress of the twenty-third of October last." The board now declined to agree to these boundaries, and proposed the inclusion of a million of acres within confines starting from a point on the Ohio river twenty miles above the mouth of the Great Miami, along the courses of the former and following the latter, an east and west line on the north, and a line running nearly parallel with the general direction of the Miami to the place of beginning. This point was within the present limits of Cincinnati. A line drawn northwestward from it would leave STITES and other purchasers (for SYMMES continued to sell the lands between the Little Miami and that line) outside of the Purchase. More than three years afterwards July 19, 1791 - Governor ST. CLAIR issued his proclamation warning against such purchases, and threatening ejection by the officers of the United States, at the same time defining the boundaries of the Purchase pretty nearly as in the letter of the treasury board. Much annoyance was caused to SYMMES, and much trouble and alarm to the -settlers of Columbia and elsewhere on the west side of the Little Miami, by this uncertainty as to their lands; but the patent finally granted and fixing the Miamis as the eastern and western limits of the Purchase, quieted and confirmed their titles. Shortly after the action of the. board of treasury agreeing to the Proposed Miami purchase, Thomas HUTCHINS, then geographer of the United States, offered Israel LUDLOW, a young surveyor from New Jersey, an appointment to survey the boundary of the tract, "being assured," he wrote, "of your abilities, diligence, and integrity." He was also commissioned to survey the Ohio company's purchase, and received an order from the Secretary of War on the frontier posts for sufficient troops to serve as an escort into the wilderness. He accepted the appointment, and made repeated application for escorts to Major ZEIGLER and Generals HARMAR and ST. CLAIR; but without success, on account of the weakness of the garrisons, until October 21, 1791, when ST. CLAIR gave him a sergeant and fifteen men. With these he accomplished the survey of the Ohio company's boundaries, but, he writes, "with the loss of six of the escort, and leaving in the woods all my pack-horses and their equipage, and being obliged to make a raft of logs to descend the Ohio as far as Limestone, from opposite the mouth of the treat Sandy river." At Fort Washington he now applied to Major ZEIGLER, commandant, for an escort on the Miami survey, but could get none, and undertook the work, in the winter of 1791-2 With simply the protection of three woodsmen to serve as spies and give notice of approach- ~pg 42~ ing danger. He went with these a hundred miles up the Great Miami, through deep snow and severely cold weather, during which his men had their feet frozen and were unable to hunt for the supply of the expedition; and he consequently returned. When the season moderated, he made another attempt to run the boundaries, with but three armed men in the party; but was frightened back by signs of Indians, and was again denied an escort at Fort Washington. By May 5, 1792, LUDLOW could only report to the Government that "I now, have the satisfaction to present to you the whole of the survey of the Ohio and part of the Miami purchases executed agreeably to instructions. "The full commission was, however, finally executed by Colonel LUDLOW, and in good shape. He was subsequently the surveyor of the original site of Cincinnati, in which he was also a joint proprietor. pages 34-45 Messrs. DAYTON and MARSH, representing the SYMMES company, concluded a contract with. the treasury commissioners May 15, 1788, for two millions of acres, in two separate and equal tracts. The judge in July made up his mind to take but one million-acre tract, and, after his departure for the west, DAYTON and MARSH arranged a new contract with the Government for that amount of land between the Miamis, but its eastern boundary beginning at a line twenty miles up the Ohio from the mouth of the Great Miami. This agreement seems now absurd, in the light of knowledge that less than six hundred thousand acres are included in the entire tract between the rivers south of a line from the headwaters of the Little Miami due west to the other stream, and that, between the boundaries now agreed upon, less than half the quantity of land was enclosed that had been solemnly bargained for. On the fourteenth of July, 1788, Judge SYMMES again addressed the treasury board, expressing his desire "to adhere to the banks of both Miamis in the boundaries of the one million acres," but asked permission to enter the tract with a party of settlers and cause a survey to be made and an accurate map of the country to be prepared, "on which you may delineate your pleasure "Until we have better knowledge," he adds, reasonably enough, "I conceive any further stipulations of boundaries would be rather premature." The board made no concession, however, and withheld the desired permission for him to enter upon the premises. Confiding in the ultimate decisions of Congress, he nevertheless, as STITES and other purchasers had already started for the Miamis, and part of his own following had been equipped and had crossed the Delaware en route westward, set out with a considerable caravan, reached Pittsburgh August 20th, and the mouth of the Great Miami on the twenty-second of September. From here he explored the country as far up as the north side of the fifth range of townships, and returned to Limestone, from which he did not set out with his party to make permanent settlement at North Bend until the twenty-ninth of the next January. Limestone was still a small place. Only three years before, General BUTLER, one of the commissioners to negotiate treaties with the Indian tribes, passed it with a large party, and thus recorded his impressions in his diary This I think to be a settlement of fine land, and believe the people will do very well, provided they have peace. There are about fifteen good cabins for families, kitchens, etc., included, and twenty-five houses. Here is a small creek, and from here a good wagon-road to Lexington and other places. The people seem determined to defend themselves; every man walks with his rifle in his hand, so enured are they to alarm. They are very civil, but possess that rottenness of manner so universally attendant on seclusion from general society. Meanwhile, though, the settlement of Columbia had been made by Major STITES and others, and surveying parties sent out by SYMMES to begin the survey of the proposed Purchase, a party on each of the Miamis, each to move north to points sixty miles in a straight line from the Ohio. The Losantiville (Cincinnati) colony had also made its settlement opposite the mouth of the Licking. The occupation of the Purchase had fully begun. Congress took alarm at the departure of SYMMES before the closing of the business, fearing that he would get possession of the tract and set the Government at defiance. Judge BURNET, in his Notes on the settlement of the Northwestern Territory, says a resolution was offered in the body, ordering Colonel HARMAR to dispossess him and pay the expenses of any military operations thus made necessary, out of the moneys deposited for his first payment; but that, through the representations of Dr. BOUDINOT and Captain DAYTON, two of his associates and also members of Congress, the message was withdrawn. Certain it is, a resolution was moved in Congress a month after SYMMES left, repealing the several acts of the previous October, by which the board of treasury was authorized to contract for the sale of western territory. It was referred to a committee, who consented to -waive their report of the resolution back with recommendation of its passage, upon the intercession of the gentlemen named, together with Daniel MARSH, also of the East Jersey association. These persons urged its suppression mainly upon the ground that Judge SYMMES, before departure, had completed his first payment in certificates and "army rights," and that in accepting it the United States were as firmly bound as if a contract had been signed. They agreed, in consideration of the failure to report the resolution, to sign a contract with the Government for the Purchase, with the limits prescribed by the board in the letter of June 16th. SYMMES had given MARSH a power of attorney at Pittsburgh, and, although technical objection was made to it, a tripartite contract was finally concluded October 15, 1788,3 after many difficulties and disputes with the treasury board, between the board representing the Government as party of the first part, DAYTON and MARSH as party of the second, and SYMMES and his associates as party of the third part, for one million of acres in the Miami country, to be bounded as insisted upon by the commissioners and agreed to by DAYTON, BOUDINOT, and MARSH. The contract stipulated that if SYMMES, of the party of the third part, should neglect or refuse to execute it, the same should inure to the benefit of the parties of the second part, who, in that case, covenanted to perfect it themselves. It was further stipulated that the association should have the privilege of selling and locating as much ~pg 43~ of the remainder of the Purchase as they chose to take at the contract price-sixty-six and two-thirds cents per acre, payable in certificates of Federal indebtedness. These could then be bought for five shillings on the pound, Pennsylvania currency-so that the original cash price of lands in the Miami Purchase, paid by SYMMES & Company was but fifteen pence, or sixteen and two- thirds cents per acre. In pursuance of this provision the community at large was publicly invited to become associated with the company and avail themselves of this privilege. The terms of this offer bore a general and in some respects close resemblance to the original "Terms of Sale and Settlement," issued at Trenton in November, 1787. To induce them to do so without loss of time, it was stipulated that after the first of May then ensuing the price of the land should be one dollar "proclamation money," but that it would be still further increased as the settlement of the country would justify. It was expressly promised that all moneys received on those sales, above the Congress price, should be deposited with the register and expended in opening roads and erecting bridges for the benefit of the settlements. It was also stipulated that a register should be appointed by the associates to superintend the location of the land and to receive and apply the surplus money to those purposes. This provision, however, was neglected by the company, Mr. SYMMES himself acting practically as register, receiving and using all moneys paid in after as well as before the raising of the price. The consideration money was to be paid to the parties of the second and third parts in six semi-annual equal instalments, and they were to receive patents for proportionate parts of the lands. Purchasers could pay one-seventh of the amount in military land warrants, issued by the Government to the Revolutionary officers and soldiers; and, for the convenience of those who wished to do so, Colonel DAYTON was appointed to receive such payments. Subsequently the third entire range of townships in the Purchase was conveyed to DAYTON, in trust for persons holding these warrants; it hence was called the Military range. It is now in Butler and Warren counties. Every locator was required to place himself or some other person on the land he purchased, within two years from entering his location, or in some station of defence, beginning improvement on every tract if it could be done with safety, and continuing the improvement seven years, if not disturbed by Indians, on penalty of forfeiture of one-sixth of each tract. This fractional part the register was to lay off at the northeast corner in a regular square, and grant to any settler who should first apply and perform the requirements. The object of this was to secure actual inhabitants, who would open up the country, and to make sure of at least one bonafide settler on each section. The tract thus held in abeyance was commonly called the "forfeiture." No register, as before noted, was appointed, though the forfeiture tracts were reserved; and the business was otherwise somewhat loosely conducted, so that it is considered doubtful whether any "forfeiture" title in the purchase was free from incumbrance; but when they came into litigation, the courts and juries took liberal views of the equities of the case and sustained the settlers. SYMMES and his associates were to survey the Purchase at their own expense, and adopted a plan which was more economical than accurate. The principal surveyor - at first John FILSON, and, after his death at the hands of the Indians, Colonel Israel LUDLOW - was instructed to run a line east and west from one Miami river to the other, sufficiently north to avoid the bends of the Ohio, for a base line, and to plant stakes every mile. The assistant surveyors were to run meridian lines by compass from each of these stakes, and plant a stake at the end of each mile for a section corner. Purchasers were then allowed to complete surveys by running east and west lines between the corners, at-their own expense. This was, of course, a very defective plan, and it resulted that scarcely two sections could be found in the purchase of the same shape or of equal contents. Some were too narrow, others too wide. It was doubted whether there was one in the entire tract of which the corresponding corners, either on the north or south side, were in the same east and west line. In some instances, says Judge BURNET, the corner on one meridian would prove to be ten, twenty, and sometimes thirty rods north or south of the corresponding corner on the other meridian. This irregularity was very much the subject of complaint. Three or four years afterward, when many of the sections had been occupied and improved, Judge SYMMES adopted a plan to remove the difficulty, which rather increased it. He caused the meridian line, part of which formed the eastern boundary of the site of old Cincinnati, to be remeasured, and new stakes to be set at the terminus of each mile. This line he then declared to be the standard, and directed purchasers and settlers to run their lines anew east and west from these stakes, and re-establish their corners at the points of intersection on the meridians. This plan, had it been persisted in, would have changed every original corner in the purchase. Some of the land owners followed the judge's directions, and bounded their possessions by the new lines thus established. Much confusion and trouble resulted; but not for a great while, since a decision was presently obtained from the supreme court of the State, which confirmed the old corners on the ground that the original surveys had been made under authority of an act of Congress and accepted at the treasury department, and were therefore final and obligatory, and not to be disturbed by either party. The territorial lines of many parts of Hamilton county therefore remain to this day exceedingly uneven. The county maps show its northern line, for example, about as angular, in places, as a Virginia rail fence. About the same time a similar difficulty arose as to the boundaries of the Military range; but in this case also the original surveys were confirmed by the supreme court. In the former case, as some sections were too large and others too small, Judge SYMMES adopted a rule that he would pay the purchasers four dollars an acre for the amount that their land was short of the quantity bargained for, and require the payment of a like sum per acre for those who had secured too much by the incorrect surveys. Notwithstanding all his efforts to obviate ~pg 44~ the difficulties, however, they continued to multiply, resulting in much litigation, kept up in some cases even after the decision of the supreme court. The contract of October, 1788, required the payment of the purchase money to be completed within three years after the boundary lines of the entire tract had been surveyed and plainly marked by the geographer of the United States or some other person appointed for the purpose. The last instalment fell due early in 1792, when only the first and part of the second payment had been made; and so the entire contract became liable to forfeiture. SYMMES had sold not only in the purchase as defined by the contract, but also most of the land between his east line and the Little Miami. In the spring of that year he petitioned Congress to allow the alteration of the contract extending the eastern boundary to that river, as originally asked. It was fortunately granted by an act of April 12, 1792, and by this a large number of innocent purchasers were secured in the quiet possession of their lands. It also provided for the reservation of fifteen acres to the Government, near the first town plat of Cincinnati, upon which Fort Washington was afterwards built. Judge SYMMES then petitioned for a law authorizing the President to issue to him a patent for so much of the purchase as he had paid and could pay for. This, too, was allowed May 5, 1792, and two years thereafter be visited Philadelphia, then the seat of Government, settled with the Treasury department, found he had paid for two hundred and forty-eight thousand five hundred and forty acres, and received a patent signed by President WASHINGTON, and dated September 30, 1794, for three hundred and eleven thousand six hundred and eighty-two acres, which included total reservations of sixty-three thousand one hundred and forty-two acres, fifteen acres for Fort Washington, and all sections or lots numbered eight, eleven, twenty-six, and twenty-nine, for such purposes as Congress might direct. All these, including the Fort Washington reserve, were released and put into the market by Congress in 1808. The remainder of the original Miami Purchase under the contract of course reverted to the Government. Sections sixteen were also reserved for public schools, and the equivalent of a section at or near the mouth of the Great Miami river, probably for a fortification, but afterwards sold to the SYMMES' company; and one full township, to be located as near the center of the tract as possible, "for the purpose of establishing an academy and other public schools and seminaries of learning." The boundaries of the tract were substantially defined as the Great and Little Miami rivers, the Ohio, and a parallel of latitude to be drawn between the two former rivers, so as to comprise three hundred and eleven thousand six hundred and eighty-two acres. These enclosed, of course, all of Hamilton county between the rivers, and parts of the present counties of Butler and Warren to the northern boundary of the third range of townships, on an east and west line several miles north of the subsequent site of Lebanon. The tracts sold by SYMMES north of this line were allowed by the Government to be regularly pre-empted and entered at Cincinnati by the purchasers, they taking the usual patents therefor at two dollars per acre. This result was not reached without long delay and much difficulty. Doubts of his right to sell lands so far to the northward had previously harassed purchasers, and they finally insisted that he should take steps for their security. They wanted to petition Congress, but he dissuaded them, went again to Philadelphia in the fall of 1796, and spent the following-winter and spring in efforts to induce the Government to take his offered money and make him a further grant in the Purchase, which would cover his troublesome sales. The arrangement of 1792 had apparently left open the contract of 1788, as to the remainder of the million acres bargained for; and, even so late as 1797, SYMMES and his agents continued to offer lands in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and even the tenth range of townships "in the Miami Purchase." Congress finally decided, however, that the law of 1792 and the settlement and patent of 1794 constituted a full adjustment of his claims and a full performance by the Government of its obligations toward the company, and that he had no further rights under the contract. The situation of his grantees outside the Purchase was now desperate. Many had paid in full, all had in part, and most had spent much money and labor in improvements, which they were now liable to lose, together with their lands. Several towns had been laid out and settled upon this tract, mills built, orchards planted, and other important beginnings made. Of all these there was danger the rightful proprietors would be dispossessed, without remuneration. Congress was memorialized, and was generous in its provisions for relief. By an act passed in 1799 all persons having made written land contracts with SYMMES before April 1st of that year, outside his patent, were secured preference over all other purchasers from the Government. Two years thereafter the right of preemption was extended to all purchasers from SYMMES prior to the first of January, 1800. The extension of credit by Congress was so liberal that many were enabled to complete. their payments from the produce of the farms; and all, it is believed, by the indulgence of the Government from year to year, were at last made secure in their titles. The act of Congress March 3, 1801, provided in effect that any person who had contracted in writing, before the first of January, 1800, with Judge SYMMES, or any of his associates, or had made payment to them for the purchase of any land between the Miami rivers, within the limits of the survey of the Purchase made by LUDLOW, and not within the tract which SYMMES had received, his patent should be entitled to preference in purchasing said land from the United States, at the then fixed price of public lands, two dollars per acre. Under another section of the act President JEFFERSON appointed Messrs. John REILY and William GOFORTH to act with General FINDLAY, receiver of public moneys at Cincinnati, as commissioners to hear and determine the rights of claimants under the law. A year did not suffice for the settlement of all claims, and by another law of May. 1, 1802, the provisions of the former act were extended twelve months longer. Mr. REILY was reappointed com- ~pg 45~ missioner; Dr. John SELLMAN was also appointed; and the two, with General FINDLAY, as commissioner ex officio, closed up the business within. the year. The following copy of the letter of transmittal accompanying the commission to Dr. GOFORTH, a well-known member of the board, will be read here. with interest: TREASURY DEPARTMENT, October 9, 1801. Sir: - The President of the United States having thought proper to appoint you a commissioner, under the fourth section of an act of Congress, passed March 3, 1801, entitled "an act giving a right of pre-emption to certain persons who have contracted with John Cleves SYMMES, or his associates, for lands lying between the Miami rivers, in the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio," I enclose to you, herewith, a commission for that purpose. The duties to be performed, and the compensation to be allowed to you therefor, being fully detailed in the act above recited, I shall only remark that, as the commissioners will not arrive in time to admit of the three weeks notice required by the law, all practicable means should be employed to apprise the parties concerned of the appointment of the commissioners, as well through the medium of the news-paper published at Cincinnati, as by hand-bills posted up in the neighboring districts. As it will be proper, however, that the commissioners should act in concert in this, and all other matters confided to them, I beg leave to recommend that a meeting be immediately held for that purpose. I am, very respectfully, sir, Your obedient servant, ALBERT GALLATIN. WILLIAM GOFORTH, ESQ., at Cincinnati. THE "COLLEGE TOWNSHIP" also gave Judge SYMMES and others much embarrassment. He had sold all or most of the township proposed to be reserved for academic purposes, which, originally advertised-in his "Terms of Sale and Settlement," was one of the best tracts in the purchase; It is now Green township-the only regular thirty-six section township in the county. Strictly, the Purchase was not entitled by law to a college township, since the ordinance under which the early sales of public lands were made only allowed it when a purchase of two millions or more of acres was made. When SYMMES' associates and agents reduced the Purchase to one million, he accordingly gave up the idea of a college township, erased the entry of it which had previously been marked out upon his map, and sold its lands with the rest. But when the, bills for the change of boundaries and the grant of the patent were before Congress, DAYTON had secured the insertion of a provision for such township, for "an academy, or other school of learning, to be located within five years in nearly the center of the patent as might be." There was now not an entire township left unsold in the Purchase. SYMMES, in 1799, offered the Government the second township of the second fractional range; but that had also been, sold in large part, and the offer was rejected successively by the Federal and Territorial Governments, the State legislature, and then Congress again, to whom he in turn offered it, holding previous sales from it, to be void. After the State government was formed Congress granted the legislature another township, or thirty-six sections, from the public lands, in lieu of one in the Purchase, which was selected by a commission appointed, in 1803, from unsold lands west of the Great Miami. These form the pecuniary foundation - such as it is, through mismanagement and waste-of Miami University, established by the legislature in 1809, located at first by the commissioners at Lebanon, within the Purchase, but afterwards fixed by the legislature at the present village of Oxford, Butler County, where it has since remained.4 The troubles of Judge SYMMES concerning his Purchase were endless, and embittered much of his later life. In 1811 his house at North Bend was burned, presumably by an enemy who was angered at him for having refused to vote for the incendiary for some local office. In the destruction of this house also perished the certificates of the original proprietors of Cincinnati, upon which the judge had made deeds to purchasers after he was enabled to do so by the obtainment of his patent. In some cases they had been irregularly and fraudulently secured; in others deeds had been made to assignees of certificates, upon assignments asserted by the original holders to be fraudulent. It was also important to learn whether all deeds for lots in the town had been authorized by the proprietors; but, whatever the facts were, the loss of certificates, which was irreparable, shut off investigation, and operated as a quietus for the claimants in possession. The agitations created by the disaster, however, increased seriously the burdens of the now aged pioneer. Four years thereafter the enterprising adventurer and hero of the Miami Purchase found rest in the grave, where, After life's fitful fever, he sleeps well. 1 pg 36: He was author of the book cited in Chapter I of this volume, from which a unique description of the Great and Little " Mineami " river is extracted. 2 pg 39 We here follow the narrative of Dr. Ezra FERRIS, of Columbia, afterwards of Lawrenceburgh, Indiana, in his communication to the Cincinnati Daily Gazette of July 20, 1844. The common statement is that STITES met judge SYMMES in New York, during the session of Congress. 3 pg 42 This instrument was not entered in the official records of Hamilton county until March 17, 1821. 4 pg 45 Almost the entire account of the contract of 1788, and the subsequent transactions, has been derived from Judge BURNET'S interesting and instructive Notes upon the settlement of the Northwestern Territory.