OHIO STATEWIDE FILES OH-FOOTSTEPS Mailing List Issue 201 *********************************************************************** 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 201 Today's Topics: #1 History, Hamilton County ; Ch 5 Ti ["Maggie Stewart" To: OH-FOOTSTEPS-L@rootsweb.com Message-ID: <0a6801bfe3a9$987759c0$0300a8c0@local.net> Subject: History, Hamilton County ; Ch 5 Titles to Ohio - The Miami Purchase - pgs 34-44 (3) 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 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. -------------------------------- End of OH-FOOTSTEPS-D Digest V00 Issue #201 *******************************************