The Congress Lands East of Scioto River was a land tract in southern Ohio that was established by the Congress late in the 18th century. It is located south of the United States Military District and Refugee Tract, west of the Old Seven Ranges, east of the Virginia Military District and north of the Ohio River, French Grant, and the Ohio Company of Associates.
Acquired by Great Britain from France following the 1763 Treaty of Paris, the Ohio Country had been closed to white settlement by the Proclamation of 1763. The United States claimed the region after the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War. The Congress passed the Land Ordinance of 1785 as a formal means of surveying, selling, and settling the land and raising revenue. The land was to be systematically surveyed into square "townships", six miles (9.656 km) on a side created by lines running north-south intersected by east-west lines. Townships were to be arranged in north-south rows called ranges. These townships were sub-divided into thirty-six "sections" of one square mile (2.59 km²) or 640 acres. These ranges, townships, and sections were to be systematically numbered. [1]
The first north-south line, Eastern Ohio Meridian , was to be the western boundary of Pennsylvania, sometimes called Ellicott‘s Line [2] after Andrew Ellicott, who had been in charge of surveying it, and the first east-west line (called the Geographer’s Line or Base Line) was to begin where the Pennsylvania boundary touched the north bank of the Ohio River, the Beginning Point of the U.S. Public Land Survey ( 40°38′33″N80°31′10″W / 40.64250°N 80.51944°W ). The Geographer’s Line was to extend westward through “the whole territory” which at that time was meant to include lands lying between the Ohio River and Lake Erie.
A problem with this plan was that Connecticut had a claim on lands north of the 41st parallel north latitude. Thus, on May 9, 1786, [3] Congress instructed Thomas Hutchins, Geographer of the United States, to continue his survey only south of the Geographers line. Hutchins group completed surveying seven ranges by 1787 and presented plats to Congress in 1788 for the tract that became known as the Seven Ranges.
In 1784, Congress granted a tract of land west of the Scioto River to the state of Virginia for land grants to their American Revolutionary War veterans, known as the Virginia Military District.
The Ohio Company of Associates purchased a land tract adjacent to the west of the Seven Ranges in 1787 and began settlement and surveying in 1788. In 1792 Congress donated a tract of land to the company known as the Donation Tract, and the company purchased additional lands known as the Second Purchase or Purchase on the Muskingum.
In 1795, Congress granted a land tract adjacent to the Ohio River, in far southern Ohio located between the Scioto River and the Ohio Company lands, to French Immigrants who had been defrauded. This became known as the French Grant.
On June 1, 1796, [4] Congress created the United States Military District, sometimes called the USMD Lands, or USMD Survey. [1] The district was west of the Old Seven Ranges, east of the Scioto River, and south of the Greenville Treaty Line.
After the previously mentioned surveys, an unsurveyed tract of land in southern Ohio remained east of the Scioto River. In that tract, lands were surveyed starting in 1799 under the Act of May 18, 1796. [5] The ranges and townships followed those of the original Seven Ranges, ranges being numbered westward from Pennsylvania, and townships within each range numbered from south to north starting at the Ohio River, known as the Ohio River Base, and some in ranges 22 and 23 from the Scioto River, the Scioto River Base Surveys, [6] thus having townships in adjacent ranges with different numbers. Sections were numbered according to the 1796 pattern. A number of irregularities in applying the system occur due to surveying errors, multiple surveys and erratic numbering. [1]
Beginning in 1801, a strip of 103,527 acres (418.96 km2) along the north edge of the tract was donated by Congress to refugees from Canada that became known as the Refugee Tract.
Section 4 of the Land Act of May 18, 1796, provided that the lands in the survey area be sold at “Pittsburg”. The Land Act of May 10, 1800, [7] established an Land Office and Land District at Chillicothe for sales of those lands in the 16th range and points west, and a land district at Marietta for sales of lands in the 15th range and points east. The Act of March 3, 1803 [8] established a new land district at Zanesville for the lands in the 15th and eastward ranges. Sales were also conducted from the nation’s capital at the General Land Office. Local offices were eventually closed. The State of Ohio also eventually sold lands granted to them by the federal government, such as section 16 of each township, and the Salt Reservations.
The survey in Ohio in modern times includes more than 3,500,000 acres (14,000 km2) in all or parts of these counties: Fairfield, Franklin, Gallia, Guernsey, Hocking, Jackson, Lawrence, Morgan, Muskingum, Noble, Perry, Pickaway, Pike, Ross, Scioto, Vinton, and Washington.
The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress of the Confederation on May 20, 1785. It set up a standardized system whereby settlers could purchase title to farmland in the undeveloped west. Congress at the time did not have the power to raise revenue by direct taxation, so land sales provided an important revenue stream. The Ordinance set up a survey system that eventually covered over three-quarters of the area of the continental United States.
The Virginia Military District was an approximately 4.2 million acre (17,000 km²) area of land in what is now the state of Ohio that was reserved by Virginia to use as payment in lieu of cash for its veterans of the American Revolutionary War.
The Ohio Company of Associates, also known as the Ohio Company, was a land company whose members are today credited with becoming the first non-Native American group to permanently settle west of the Allegheny mountains. In 1788 they established Marietta, Ohio, as the first permanent settlement of the new United States in the newly organized Northwest Territory.
The Ohio Lands were the several grants, tracts, districts and cessions which make up what is now the U.S. state of Ohio. The Ohio Country was one of the first settled parts of the Midwest, and indeed one of the first settled parts of the United States beyond the original Thirteen Colonies. The land that became first the anchor of the Northwest Territory and later Ohio was cobbled together from a variety of sources and owners.
South and East of the First Principal Meridian is a land description in the American Midwest.
The Refugee Tract is an area of land in Ohio, United States granted to people from British Canada who left home prior to July 4, 1776, stayed in the US until November 25, 1783 continuously, and aided the revolutionary cause.
The Seven Ranges was a land tract in eastern Ohio that was the first tract to be surveyed in what became the Public Land Survey System. The tract is 42 miles (68 km) across the northern edge, 91 miles (146 km) on the western edge, with the south and east sides along the Ohio River. It consists of all of Monroe, Harrison, Belmont and Jefferson, and portions of Carroll, Columbiana, Tuscarawas, Guernsey, Noble, and Washington County.
Seven Ranges Terminus is a stone surveying marker near Magnolia, Ohio that marks the completion of the first step in opening the lands northwest of the Ohio River to sale and settlement by Americans. This survey marked the first application of the rectangular plan for subdividing land.
The Congress Lands was a group of land tracts in Ohio that made land available for sale to members of the general public through land offices in various cities, and through the General Land Office. It consisted of three groups of surveys:
The United States Military District was a land tract in central Ohio that was established by the Congress to compensate veterans of the American Revolutionary War for their service. The tract contains 2,539,110 acres (10,275.4 km2) in Noble, Guernsey, Tuscarawas, Muskingum, Coshocton, Holmes, Licking, Knox, Franklin, Delaware, Morrow, and Marion counties.
The Ephraim Kimberly Grant was a land tract in eastern Ohio that was granted to an American Revolutionary War veteran by Congress late in the 18th century. It was located in the Seven Ranges along the Ohio River.
The Congress Lands North of the Old Seven Ranges was a land tract in northeast Ohio that was established by the Congress early in the 19th century. It is located south of the Connecticut Western Reserve and Firelands, east of the Congress Lands South and East of the First Principal Meridian, north of the United States Military District and Seven Ranges, and west of Pennsylvania.
The Congress Lands West of Miami River was a land tract in southwest Ohio that was established by the Congress late in the 18th century. It is located south of the Greenville Treaty Line, east of Indiana, and north of the Great Miami River. The original survey in 1798 contained a triangular shaped slice of land, now located in Indiana, that extended to the Greenville line as it ran from Fort Recovery to opposite the mouth of the Kentucky River.
The Salt Reservations were a collection of land tracts surrounding salt springs in Ohio and some other states that were donated to the states by the federal government early in the 19th century.
The Twelve Mile Square Reservation, also called the Twelve Mile Square Reserve, was a tract of land in Ohio ceded by Indians to the United States of America in the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. This particular area of land immediately surrounding Fort Miami was considered to be of strategic importance by the United States government representatives. It was subsequently surveyed in a manner different from surrounding land, and lots sold, or granted, to settlers.
The Two Mile Square Reservation or Two Mile Square Reserve was a tract of land in Ohio ceded by Native Americans to the United States of America in the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. It was subsequently surveyed in a manner different from surrounding land, and lots sold to settlers.
North and East of the First Principal Meridian is a survey and land description in the northwest part of the U.S. state of Ohio.
Zane's Tracts were three parcels of land in the Northwest Territory of the United States, later Ohio, that the federal government granted to Ebenezer Zane late in the 18th century, as compensation for establishing a road with ferry service over several rivers.
Israel Ludlow was a government surveyor who helped found Cincinnati, Dayton and Hamilton in southwest Ohio.
Moravian Indian Grants were three tracts of land in Tuscarawas County, Ohio granted by the federal government in the eighteenth century to a group of Christian Indians. In the nineteenth century, these natives moved west, and the government sold the land to white people.
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| metes and bounds Survey | ||
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