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 3/4 of the area of the continental United States.
Lucius Lyon was a U.S. statesman from the state of Michigan. He was born in Shelburne, Vermont, where he received a common school education and studied engineering and surveying. He moved to Bronson, Michigan, in 1821 where he became a land surveyor, eventually becoming the Deputy Surveyor General of the Michigan Territory.
The "College Township" was the full survey township located in the northwest corner of Butler County, Ohio, now corresponding to the civil township of Oxford, designated by the Ohio General Assembly to be the site of the state university now called Miami University. When Congress, on May 5, 1792, authorized the sale to John Cleves Symmes of the land known as the Symmes Purchase, one of the terms was that he would allocate a full township of land to support a university, a promise he never fulfilled. The United States Congress subsequently allowed the State of Ohio to pick a township in the public domain for a college. They chose a township in the first range in the Congress Lands, namely R1E T5.
The Michigan meridian is the principal meridian used as a reference in the Michigan Survey, the survey of the U.S. state of Michigan in the early 19th century. It is located at 84 degrees, 21 minutes and 53 seconds west longitude at its northern terminus at Sault Ste. Marie, and varies very little from that line down the length of the state.
The Surveyor General of the Northwest Territory was a United States government official responsible for surveying land in the Northwest Territory in the United States late in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. The position was created in the Land Act of 1796 to survey lands ceded by Indians northwest of the Ohio River and above the mouth of the Kentucky River. This act, and those that followed evolved into the Public Land Survey System.
On May 6, 1812, an act of Congress was passed 2 Stat. 729 (PDF) which set aside bounty lands as payment to volunteer soldiers for the War against the British. The land was set aside in western territories that became part of the present states of Arkansas, Michigan and Illinois.
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.
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 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 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.
Maumee Road Lands were a group of land tracts granted by the United States Congress to the state of Ohio in 1823 along the path of a proposed road in the northwest corner of the state.
Turnpike Lands were a group of land tracts granted by the United States Congress to the state of Ohio in 1827 along the path of a proposed road in the northwest corner of the state.
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 American state called Ohio.
Indian Land Grants were land tracts granted to various Indians by Treaty or by United States Congressional action in the Nineteenth century in northwestern Ohio.
