OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List Issue 200 *********************************************************************** USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ *********************************************************************** OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest Volume 00 : Issue 200 Today's Topics: #1 History, Hamilton County ; Ch 5 Ti ["Maggie Stewart" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <0a6601bfe3a9$96f54da0$0300a8c0@local.net> Subject: History, Hamilton County ; Ch 5 Titles to Ohio - The Miami Purchase - pgs 34-44 (1) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit 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. -----Continued in Part 2----- -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V00 Issue #200 *******************************************