Medina County, Ohio - Chapter 17 (1 of 2 so headed), 1881

Its Origin And Organization

SEIS the inexperienced student of the history of Ohio, nothing is more perplexing and unsatisfactory, than the account of its publie lands. Held theoretically by the conflicting claims of colonies, each jealous of the other's prestige, and practically controlled by the determined assertion of his claim by the Indian, its territory came under the acknowledged control of the General Government in a fragmentary way, and in the early surveys i lacks that regular arrangement which marks the larger part of the old Northwestern Territory. But, to the early colonist, Ohio was the land of promise. The reports of the early explorers who had been sent to spy out the land were such as to stimulate the rapacity of greedy adventurers to the highest pitch, and Ohio became at once the center of attraction, not only to that class, but also to the pioneer settlements of the East. The spirit of land speculation was fostered by the system of royal charters and favoritism, and colonial officials were rapidly acquiring titles to large tracts of the fertile lands of the Northwest. Lord Dunmore, who represented the crown in Virginia, had made arrangements to secure a large portion of this territory, which were only frustrated by the precipitation of the Revolutionary struggle. In all these operations the rights or interests of the Indians were ignored. Might was the measure of the white man's right, and,in the face of formal treaties very favorable to the whites, the lands reserved to the natives were shamelessly bought and sold. Titles thus secured were obviously of no value if the integrity of solemn treaties were to be respected, but, so generally had the public mind been corrupted by the greed for gain, that this consideration offered no hindrance whatever to this sort of traffic in land titles. In 1776, however, the colonies having renounced their allegiance to the mother country, and having assumed a position as sovereign and independent States, a summary end was put to this speculation, and all persons were forbidden to locate in this territory, until its ownership and jurisdiction should be determined. Each State claimed the right of soil, the jurisdiction over the district of country embraced by the provisions of its charter, and the privilege of disposing of the land to subserve its own interests. The States, on the contrary, which had no such charter, insisted that that these lands ought to be appropriated for the benefit of all the States, as the title to them, if secured at all, would be by the expenditure of the blood and moneys of all alike. The treaty of peace with England was signed at Paris, September 3, 1783, and Congress at once became urgent in seconding this demand of the non charter-holding States. Under the charters held by the individual State, the General Government was powerless to fulfill its agreement with the troops, to grant land to each soldier of the war, and the general dissatisfaction occasioned by this state of things, formed a powerful influence which finally brought about a general cession of these unappropriated lands, held by the different States. In March, 1784, Virginia ceded her territory situated northwest of the River Ohio, reserving the tract now known as the Virginia Military Lands. In 1786, Connecticut ceded her territory, save the " Western Reserve ;" reserved cessions were made by Massachusetts in 1785, and by New York in 1780.

When Ohio was admitted into the Federal Union in 1803, as an independent State, one of the terms of admission was, that the fee simple to all the lands within its limits, excepting those previously granted or sold, should vest in the United States. A large portion of the State, however, had been granted or sold to various individuals, companies and bodies politic before this, and subsequent dispositions of Ohio public lands have generally been in aid of some public State enterprise. The | following are the names by which the principal bodies of land are designated, taking their titles from the different forms of transfer:

These grants, however, may properly be divided into three general classes - Congress Lands, the Virginia Reserve and the Connecticut Reserve ; the former including all lands of the State, not known as the Virginia Military Land or the Western Reserve. Previous to any grants of this territory, the Indian title had to be acquired. Although the United States has succeeded to the rights acquired by the English from the Iroquois, there were numerous tribes that disputed the right of the dominant nation to cede this territory, and a treaty was accordingly made at Fort Stanwix, in 1784, and in the following year at Fort McIntosh, by which the Indians granted all east of a line drawn from the mouth of the Cuyahoga River to the Ohio, and all south of what subsequently became known as the Greenville Treaty line, or Indian boundary line. By this treaty, this line extended from the Portage, between the Cuyahoga and the Tuscarawas Branch of the Muskingum, * thence down that branch, to the crossing above Fort Laurens, then westerly to the Portage of the Big Miami, which runs into the Ohio, at the mouth of which the fort stood, which was taken by the French in 1752; thence along said Portage to the Great Miami, or Omee River," whence the line was extended westward, by the treaty of Greenville, in 1795, to Fort Recovery, and thence southwest to the mouth of the Kentucky River.

Congress Lands are so called because they are sold to purchasers by the immediate officers of the General Government, conformably to such laws as are, or may be, from time to time, enacted by Congress. They are all regularly surveyed into townships of six miles square each, under the authority and at the expense of the National Govern-

The townships are again subdivided into sections of one mile square. each containing 640 acres, by lines running parallel with the township and range lines. The sections are numbered in two different modes, as exhibited in the preceding figures or diagrams.

In addition to the foregoing division, the sections are again subdivided into four equal parts, called the northeast quarter-section, southeast quarter section, ete. And again by a law of Congress, which went into effect July, 1820, these quarter-sections are also divided by a north-and- south line into two equal parts, called the east half quarter-section No. - , and west half quarter-section No. - , which contain eighty acres each. The minimum price was reduced by the same law from $2 to $1.25 per acre, cash down.

In establishing the township and sectional corners, a post was first planted at the point of intersection; then on the tree nearest the post, and standing within the section intended to be designated, was numbered with the marking iron the range, township, and number of the section, thus:

Section No. 16 of every township is perpetually reserved for the use of schools, and leased or sold out, for the benefit of schools, under the State government. All the others may be taken up either in sections, fractions, halves, quarters, or half-quarters.

For the purpose of selling out these lands, they were divided into eight several land districts, called after the names of the towns in which the land offices are kept, viz., Wooster, Steubenville, Zanesville, Marietta, Chillicothe, ete., etc.

In May, (785, Congress passed an ordinance for ascertaining the mode of disposing of these lands. Under that ordinance, the first seven ranges, bounded on the north by a line drawn due west from the Pennsylvania State line, where it crosses the Ohio River, to the United States Military Lands, forty-two miles; and, on the west, by the same line drawn thence south to the Ohio River, at the southeast corner of Marietta Township, and on the east and south by the Ohio River, were surveyed in 1786-87, and in the latter year, and sales were effected at New York, to the amount of $72,974. In 1796, further portions of these lands were disposed of at Pittsburgh, to the amount of $43,446, and av Philadelphia, amounting to $5,- 120. A portion of these lands were located under United States Military land warrants, and the rest was disposed of at the Steubenville Land Office, which was opened July 1, 1801.

United States Military Lands are so called from the circumstance of their having been appropriated, by an act of Congress of the Ist of June, 1796, to satisfy certain claims of the officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary war. This tract of country, embracing these lands, is bounded as follows: Beginning at the northwest corner of the original seven ranges of townships, thence south fifty miles, thence west to the Scioto River, thence up said river to the Greenville treaty line, thence northeasterly with said line to old Fort Laurens, on the Tuscarawas River, thence due east to the place of beginning, including a tract of about 4,000 square miles, or 2,560,000 acres of land. It is, of course, bounded on the north by the Green- : ville treaty line, east by the "seven ranges of townships," south by the Congress and Refugee lands, and west by the Scioto River.

These lands are surveyed into townships of five miles square; these townships were then again, originally, surveyed into quarter townships, of two and a half miles square, containing 4,000 acres each; and, subsequently, some of these quartertownships were subdivided into forty lots, of 100 acres each, for the accommodation of those soldiers holding warrants for only 100 acres each. And again, after the time originally assigned for the location of these warrants had expired, certain quarter-townships, which had not then been located, we re divided into sections of one mile square each, and sold by the General Government, like the main body of Congress lands.

The quarter-townships are numbered as exhibited in the accompanying figure, the top being considered north. The place of each township is ascertained by numbers and ranges, the

Ohio Company's Purchase is a body of land containing about 1,500,000 acres; including, however, the donation tract, school lands, ete., lying along the Ohio River; and including Meigs, nearly all of Athens, and a considerable part of Washington and Gallia Counties. This tract was purchased by the General Government in the year 1787, by Manasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargeant, from the neighborhood of Salem, in Massachusetts, agents for the "Ohio Company," so called, which had then been formed in Massachusetts, for the purpose of a settlement in the Ohio. country. Only 964,285 acres were ultimately paid for, and, of course, patented. This body of land was then apportioned out into 817 shares, of 1,173 acres each, and a town lot of one-third of an acre to each share. These shares were made up to each proprietor in tracts, one of 610 acres, one of 262, onè of 160, one of 100, one of 8, and another of 3 acres, besides the before-mentioned town lot. Besides every section 16, set apart, as elsewhere, for the support of schools, every Section 29 is appropriated for the support of religious institutions. In addition to which were also granted two six-mile-square townships for the use of a college. But, unfortunately for the Ohio Company, owing to their want of topographical knowledge of the country, the body of Jand selected by them, with some partial exceptions, is the most hilly and sterile of any tract of similar extent in the State.

Donation Tract is a body of 100,000 acres, set off in the northern limits of the Ohio Company's tract, and granted to them by Congress, provided they should obtain one actual settler upon each hundred acres thereof, within five years from the date of the grant; and that so much of the 100,- 000 acres aforesaid, as should not thus be taken up, shall revert to the General Government.

This tract may, in some respects, be considered a part of the Ohio Company's purchase. It is situated in the northern limits of Washington County. It lies in an oblong shape, extending nearly seventeen miles from east to west, and about seven and a half north to south.

Symmes' Purchase is a tract of 311,682 acres of land in the southwestern quarter of the State, between the Great and Little Miami Rivers. It borders on the Ohio River a distance of twenty-seven miles, and extends so far back from thelatter between the two Miamis as to include the quantity of land just mentioned. It was patented to John Cleves Symmes, in 1794, for 67 cents per acre. Every sixteenth section, or square mile, in each township, was reserved hy Congress for the use of schools, and Sections 29 for the support of religlous institutions, besides fifteen acres around Fort Washington, in Cincinnati. This tract of land is now one of the most valuable in the State.

Refugee Tract, a body of 100,000 acres of land, eranted by Congress to certain individuals who left the British Provinces during the Revolutionary war and espoused the cause of freedom, is a narrow strip of country, four and a half miles broad from north to south, and extendiog eastwardly from the Scioto River forty-eight miles. It has the United States twenty ranges of military or army lands north, twenty-two ranges of Congress lands south. In the western borders of this tract is situated the town of Columbus.

French Grant is a tract of 24,000 acres of land, bordering upon the Ohio River, in the southeastern quarter of Scioto County. A short time after the Ohio Company's purchase began to be settled, an association was formed under the name of the Scioto Land Company. A contract was made for the purchase of a part of the lands included in the Ohio Company's purchases. Plats and descriptions of the land contracted for were made out, and Joel Barlow was sent as an agent to Europe to make sales of the lauds for the benefit of the company; and sales were effected of a considerable part of the land. to companies and individuals in Franee. On February 19, 1791, two hundred aud eighteen of these purchasers left Havre de Grace, in France, and arrived in Alexandria, D. C., on the 3d of May following. On their arrival, they were told that the Scioto Company owned no land. The agent insisted that they did, and promised to secure them good titles thereto, which he did, at Winchester, Brownsville and Charleston (now : Wellsburg). When they arrived at Marietta, about fifty of them landed. The rest of the company proceeded to Gallipolis, which was laid out about that time, and were assured by the agent that the place lay within their purchase. Every effort to secure titles to the lands they had purchased having failed, an application was made to Congress, and in March, 1795, the above grant was made to these persons. Twelve hundred acres additional, were aftcrward granted, adjoining the above-mentioned tract at its lower end, toward the mouth of the Little Scioto River.

Dohrman's Grant is one six-mile-square township of 23,040 acres, granted to Arnold Henry Dohrman, formerly a wealthy Portuguese merchant in Lisbon, for and in consideration of his having, during the Revolu'ionary war, given shelter and aid to the American cruisers and vessels of war. It is lo:ated in the southeastern part of Tuscarawas County.

Moravian Lands are three several tracts of 4,000 acres each, originally granted by the old Continental Congress in July, 1787, and confirmed by act of Congress of June 1, 1796, to the Moravian brethren at Bethlehem, in Pennsylvania, in trust and for the use of the Christianized Indians living thereon. They are laid out in nearly square farms, on the Muskingum River, in what is now Tuscarawas County. 'They are called by the names of the Shoenbrun. Gnadenhutten and Salem tracts.

squere each - one on the Muskingum River, which includes the town of Zanesville - one at the cross of the Hocking River, on which the town of Lancaster is laid out, and the third on the left bank of the Scioto River, opposite Chillicothe. They were granted by Congress to one Ebenezer Zane, in May, 1786, on condition that he should open a road through them, from Wheeling, Va., to Maysville, Ky.

There are also three other tracts, of one mile square each, granted to Isaac Zane, in the ycar 1802, in consideration of his having been taken prisoner by the Indians, when a boy, during the Revolutionary war, and living with them most of his life; and having during that time performed many acts of kindness and beneficence toward the American people. These tracts are situated in Champaign Coun'y, on King's Creek, from three to five miles northwest from Urbana.

The Maumee Road's Lands are a body of lands averaging two miles wide, lying along one mile on each side of the road, from the Maumee River, at Perrysburg, to the western limits of the Western Reserve, a distance of about forty-six miles, and comprising nearly 60,000 acres. They were originally granted by the Indian owners, at the treaty of Brownstown, in 1808, to enable the United States to make a road on the line just mentioned. The General Government never moved into the business until February, 1823, when Congress passed an act making over the aforesaid lands to the State of Ohio, provided she should, within four years thereafter, make and keep in repair a good road throughout the aforesaid route of forty-six miles. This road the State government has already made, obtained possession, and sold most of the land.

Turnpike Lands are forty-nine sections, amounting to 31,360 acres, situated along the western side of the Columbus and Sandusky turnpike, in the eastern parts of Seneca, Crawford and Marion Counties. They were originally granted by an act of Congress on March 3, 1827, and more specifically by a supplementary act the year following. The considerations for which these lands were granted were that the mail stages and all troops and property of the United States, which should ever be moved and transported along this road should pass free from toll.

The Ohio Canal Lands are granted by Congress to the State of Ohio, to aid in constructing her extensive canals. These lands comprise over one million of acres.

Of Ohio

States and the State of Ohio, when the latter was admitted into the Union, it was stipulated, for and in consideration that the State of Ohio should never tax the Congress lands until after they should have been sold five years, and in consideration that the publie lands would thereby more readily sell, that the one-thirty-sixth part of all the territory included within the limits of the State should be set apart for the support of common schools therein. And for the purpose of getting at lands which should, in point of quality of soil, be on an average with the whole land in the country, they decreed that it should be selected by lots, in small tracts each, to wit: That it should consist of Section No. 16, let that section be.good or bad, in every township of Congress land, also in the Ohio Company's and in Symmes' Purchases, all of which townships are composed of thirty-six sections each; and for the United States military lands and Connecticut Reserve, a number of quarter-townships, two and a half miles square each (being the smallest public surveys therein, then made), should be selected by the Secretary of the Treasury in different townships throughout the United States military tract, equivalent in quantity to the one-thirty-sixth part of those two tracts respectively; and, for the Virginia military traet, Congress enacted that a quantity of land equal to the onethirty-sixth part of the estimated quantity of land contained therein, should be selected by lot, in what was then called the "New Purchase," in quarter -township tracts of three miles square each. Most of these selections were accordingly made, but in some instances, by the carelessness of the officers conducting the sales, or from some other cause, a few Sections 16 have been sold, in which case Congress, when applied to, has generally granted other lands in lieu thereof, as, for instance, no Section 16 was reserved in Montgomery Township, in which Columbus is situated, and Congress afterward granted therefor Section 21, in township cornering thereon to the southwest.

College Townships are three six-mile-square townships, granted by Congress; two of them to the Ohio Company, for the use of a college to be established within their purchase, and one for the use of the inhabitants of Symmes' Purchase.

Ministerial Lands - In both the Ohio Company and the Symmes' Purchase every Section 29 (equal to every one-thirty-sixth part of every township) is reserved as a permanent fund for th» support of a settled minister. As the purchasers of these two tracts came from parts of the Union where it was customary and deemed necessary to have a regular settled clergyman in every town, they therefore stipulated in this original purchase that a permanent fund in lands should thus be set apart for this purchase. In no other part of the State, other than these two purchases, are any lands set apart for this object.

The Connecticut Western Reserve and the Fire Lands are surveyed into townships of about five miles square each ; and these townships are then subdivided into four quarters ; | and these quarter-townships are| 3 2 numbered as in the accompanying figure, the top being considered north. And for individual convenience, these are again subdivided, by private surveys, into lots of from fifty to five hundred aeres each, to suit individual purchasers.

In its history, the Western Reserve is far more important than any other of the early arbitrary divisions of the State. It was peopled by a dominant class that brought to this wilderness social in the Puritan persecutions of England, and erystallized by nearly half a century of pioneer life in Connecticut, into a civilization that has not yet lost its distinetive characteristics. Dating their history back to the early part of the seventeenth century, the true descendant of the Puritan points with pride to the permanency of their traditions, to the progressive character of their institutions, and marks their influence in the commanding power of the schoolhouse and church.

The earliest measure which may be said to have affected the history of the Reserve, originated in 1609. In this year, James I, granted to a company called the London Company, a charter, under which the entire claim of Virginia to the soil northwest of the Ohio was asserted. It was clothed with corporate powers, with most of its members living in London. The tract of country embraced within this charter was immense. It commenced its boundaries at Point Comfort, on the Atlantic, and ran south 200 miles, and thence west across the continent to the Pacific; commencing again at Point Comfort, and running 200 miles north, and from this point northwest to the sea. This line ran through New York and Pennsylvania, erossing the eastern end of Lake Erie, and terminated in the Arctic Ocean. The line, the diagonal line to the northwest, and the Pacific Ocean, was claimed by virtue of this charter. It included over half of the North American Continent. Notwithstanding the charter of the London Company included all the territory now embraced within the boundaries of Ohio, James I, on the 3d of November, 1620, by royal letters patent, granted to the Duke of Lenox and others, to be known as the Council of Plymouth, all the territory lying between the fortieth and fortyeighth degrees of north latitude, and bounded on the east by the Atlantie, and on the west by the Pacific. This description embraced a large tract of the lands granted to the Virginia or London Company. In 1630, a portion of the same territory was granted to the Earl of Warwick, and afterward confirmed to him by Charles I. In 1631, the Council of Plymouth, acting by the Earl of Warwick, granted to Lord Brook and Viscounts Say and Seal, what were supposed to be the same lands, although by a very imperfect description. In 1662, Charles II granted a charter to nineteen patentees, with such associates as they should from time to time elect. This association was made a body corporate and politic, by the name of the Governor and Company of the English Colony of Connecticut. This charter constituted the organic law of the State for upward of one hundred and fifty years. The boundaries were Massachusetts on the north, the sea on the south, Narragansett River or Bay on the east, and the South Sea (Pacific Ocean) on the west. This description embraced a strip of land upward of six miles wide, stretching from the Atlantic to the Pacific, including a part of New York and New Jersey, and all the territory now known as the Western Reserve.

In 1681, for the consideration of £16,000 and a fealty of two beaver skins a year, Charles II granted to William Penn a charter embracing within its limits the territory constituting the present State of Pennsylvania. This grant included a strip of territory running across the entire length of the State on the north, and upward of fifty miles wide, that was embraced within the Connecticut charter. Massachusetts, under the Plymouth Charter, claimed all the land between the forty-first and forty-fifth degrees, of north latitude. In 1664, Charles II ceded to his brother, the Duke of York, afterward James II, by letters patent, all the country between the St. Croix and the Delaware. After the overthrow of the gov- ernment of "New Netherlands," then existing upon that territory, it was claimed that the grant of the Duke of York extended west into the Mississippi Valley.

Thus matters stood at the commencement of the Revolution. Virginia claimed all the territory northwest of the Ohio. Connecticut strenuously urged her titles to all lands lying between the parallels 41? and 42° 2' of north latitude, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Pennsylvania, under the charter of 1681, had taken possession of the disputed land lying in that State, and had granted much of it to actual settlers. New York and Massachusetts were equally emphatie in the assertion of ownership to land between those lines of latitude. The contention between claimants under the Connecticut and Pennsylvania charters, on.the Susquehanna, frequently resulted in bloodshed. The controversy between those two States was finally submitted to a Court of Commissioners, appointed by Congress, upon the petition of Pennsylvania, under the ninth article of the confederation, which gave Congress power to establish a Court of Commissioners, to settle disputed boundaries between States, in case of disagreement. The court decided in favor of Pennsylvania, and this decision terminated the controversy. The question of the title to lands lying west of Pennsylvania, was not involved in this adjudication, but remained a subject for future contention. A party sprung up during the war that disputed the title of the States asserting it, to lands outside of State limits, and which insisted upon the right of the States by whose »ommon treasure, dominion was to be secured, to participate in the benefits and results arising from the joint and common @ffort for independence. This party was particularly strong' in the smaller States. Those colonies that had not been the favored recipients of extensive land grants, were little inclined to acquiesce in claims, the justice of which they denied, and which could be secured to the claimants, only by the success of the Revolution.

There is little doubt,.that the conflict in the early charters, respecting boundaries, grew out of the ignorance of the times in which they were granted, as to the breadth or inland extent of the American Continent. During the reign of James I, Sir Francis Drake reported, that, from the top of the rhountains on the Isthmus of Panama, be had seen both oceans. This led to the supposition that the continent, from east to west, was of no considerable extent, and that the South

Sea, by which the grants were limited on the west, did not lie very far from the Atlantie ; and as late as 1740, the Duke of Newcastle addressed his lctters to the ** Island of New England." Hence it was urged as an argument against the claims of those States asserting title to Western lands, that the term, in the grants, of South Sea, being, by mutual mistake of the parties to the charter, an erroneous one - the error resulting from misinformation or want of certainty concerning the locality of that sea - the claiming State ought not to insist upon an ownership resting upon such a footing, and having its origin in such a circumstance. Popular feeling on the subject ran so high, at times, as to cause apprehension for the safety of the confederation. In 1780, Congress urged upon the States having claims to the Western country, the duty to make a surrender of a part thereof to the United States.

The debt incurred in the Revolutionary contest, the limited resources for its extinguishment, if the publie domain was unavailable for the purpose, the existence of the unhappy controversy growing out of the asserted claims, and an earnest desire to accommodate and pacify conflicting interests among the States, led Congress, in 1784, to an impressive appeal to the States interested, to remove all cause for further discontent, by a liberal cession of their domains to the General Government, for the common benefit of all the States. The happy terminition of the war found the public mind in a condition to be easily impressed by appeals to its patriotism and liberality. New York had, in 1780, ceded to the United States, the lands that she claimed, lying west of a line running south from the west bend of Lake Ontario ; and,in 1785, Massachusetts relinquished her c!aim to the same lands - vach State reserving the same 19,000 square miles of ground, and each asserting an independent title to it. This controversy betweén the two States was settled by an equal division between them, of the disputed ground. Virginia had given to her soldiers of the Revolutionary war, and ofthe war between France and England, a pledge of bounties payable in Western lands ; and, reserving a suficien amount of land to enable her to meet the pledge thus given, on the Ist of March, 1784, she relinquished to the United States, her title to all other lands lying northwest of the Ohio. On the 14th day of September, 1786, the delegates in Congress, from the State of Connecticut, being authorized and directed so to do, relinquished to the United States, all the right, title, interest, jurisdic- tion and claim that she possessed to the lands lying west of a line ranning north from the 41° north latitude, to 42° 2', and being 120 miles west of the western line of Pennsylvania. The territory lying west of Pennsylvania, for the distance of 120 wiles, and between the above-named degrees of latitude, although not in terms reserved by the instrument of conveyance, was in fact reserved - not having been conveyed - and by reason thereof, was called the Western Reserve of Connecticut. It embraces the counties of Ashtabula, Trumbull, Portage, Geauga, Lake, Cuyahoga, Medina, Lorain, Huron, Erie, all of Summit, save the townships of Franklin and Greene; the two northern tiers of townships of Mahoning; the townships of Sullivan, Troy and Ruggles, of Ashland; and the islands lying north of Sandusky, including Kelley's and Put-in-Bay.

During the Revolution, the British, aided by Benedict Arnold, made incursions in the heart of Connecticut, and destroyed a large amount of property in the towns of Greenwich, Norwalk, Fairfield, Danbury, New and East Haven, New London, Richfield and Groton. There were upward of 2,000 persons and families that sustained severe losses by the depredations of the enemy. On the 10th of May, 1792, the Legislature of that State set apart and donated to the suffering inhabitants of these towns, 500,000 acres of the west part of the lands of the Reserve, to compensate them for the losses sustained. These lands were to be bounded on the north by the shore of Lake Erie, south by the base line of the Reserve, west by its western line, and east by a line parallel with the western line of Pennsylvania, and so far from the west line of the Reserve as to include within the described limits the 500,000 acres. These are the lands now embraced within the counties of Huron and Erie, and the Township of Ruggles, in Ashland County. The islands were not included. The lands so given were called ^ Bufferers' Lands," and those to whom they were given were, in 1796, by the Legislature of Connecticut, incorporated by the name of the " Proprietors of the half-million acres of land lying south of Lake Erie." After Ohio had become an independent State, this foreign corporation was not found to work well here, not being subject to her laws, and, to relieve the owners of all emb:rrassment, on the 15th of April, 1803, the Lesislature of this State conterred corporate power on the owners and proprietors of the " Half-million acres of land lying south of Lake Erie," in the county of Trumbull, called 'Sufferers' Land." An account of the losses of the inhabitants had been taken in pounds, shillings and pence, and a price placed upon the lands, and each of the sufferers received land proportioned to the extent of his loss. These lands subsequently took the name of "Fire Lands," from the circumstance that the greater part of the losses suffered resulted from fire.

In 1795, the remaining portion of the Reserve was sold to Oliver Phelps and thirty-five others, who formed what became known as the " Connecticut Land Company." Some uneasiness concerning the validity of the title arose from the fact that, whatever interest Virginia, Massachusetts or New York may have had in the lands reserved, and claimed by Connecticut, had been transferred to the United States, and, if neither of the claiming States had title, the dominion and ownership passed to the United States by the treaty made with England at the close of the Revolution. This condition of things was not the only source of difficulty and trouble. The Reserve was so far from Connecticut as to make it impracticable for that State to extend her laws over the same, or ordain new ones for the government of the inhabitants; and, having parted with all interest in the soil, her right to provide laws for the people was not only doubted, but denied. Congress had provided by the ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territory northwest of the Ohio; but to admit jurisdiction in the United States to govern this part of that territory, would cast grave doubt upon the validity of the company's title. le was therefore insisted that the regulations prescribed by that instrument for the government of the Northwest Territory had no operation or effect within the limits of the Reserve. To-quict apprehension, and to remove all cause of anxiety on the subject, Congress, on April 28, 1800, authorized the President to execute and deliver, the Governor of Connecticut, whereby the United States released, for the uses named, all ight and title to the soil of the Reserve, and confirmed it unto those who had purchased it from that State. The execution and delivery, however, of the letters patent were upon the condition that Connecticut should forever renounce and release to the United States entire and complete civil jurisdiction over the territory released. This condition was accepted, and thereupon Connecticut transferred her jurisdiction to the United States, and the

While this controversy was going on, there was another contestant in the field, having the advantage of actual occupancy, and in no wise inclined to recognize a title adverse to his, nor yield, upon mere invitation, a possession so long enjoyed. This contestant was the Indian. By the treaty at Greenville in 1795, preceding treaties were confirmed, and the different tribes released their claims to all territory east of the line of the Cnyahoga River and south of the Indian boundary line. This left the larger part of the territory of the Western Reserve still in the hands of the savage. On July 4, 1805, a treaty was made at Fort Industry with the chiefs and warriors of the different nations settled in the northern and western sections of the State, by which the Indian title to all the lands of the Reserve, lying west of the Cuyahoga, was extinguished. By this treaty all the lands lying between the Cuyahoga and the Meridian, one hundred and twenty miles west of Pennsylvania, were ceded by the Indians for $20,000 in goods, and a perpetual annuity of $9,500, payable in goods at first cost. The latter clause has become a dead letter, because there is no one to claim it. Since this treaty, the title to the land of the Reserve has been set at rest.

The price for which this vast tract of land was sold to the Connecticut Land Company was $1,200,000, the subscriptions to the purchase fund ranging from $1,683, by Sylvanus Griswold, to $168,185, by Oliver Phelps. Each dollar subscribed to this fund entitled the subscriber to one twelve hundred thousandth part in common and undivided of the land purchased. Having acquired the title, the Company, in the following spring, commenced to survey the territory lying east of the Cuyahoga, and during the years of 1796 and 1797, completed it. The first surveying party arrived at Conneaut, in New Connecticut, July 4, 1796, and proceeded at once to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of American Independence. There were fifty persons in the party, under the lead of Gen. Moses Cleveland, of Canterbury, Conn. There will be found in Whittlesey's Early History of Cleveland an extract from the journal of Cleveland, describing the particulars of the celebration. Among other things noted by him was the following: "The day, memorable as the birthday of American Independence and freedom from British tyrrany, and commemorated by all good, freeborn sons of America, and memorable as the day on which the settlement of this new country was commenced, and (which) in time may raise her head among the most enlightened and improved States " - a prophecy already more than fulfilled.

For the purposes of the survey, a point where the 41st degree of north latitude intersected the western line of Pennsylvania, was found, and from this degree of latitude, as a base line, meridian lines, five miles apart, were run north to the lake. Lines of latitude were then run, five miles apart, thus dividing the territory into townships five miles square. It was not until after the treaty of 1805 that the lands lying west of the Cuyahoga were surveyed. The meridians and parallels were run out in 1806, by Abraham Tappan and his assistants. The base and western lines of the Reserve were run by Seth Pease, for the Government. The range of townships were numbered progressively west, from the western boundary of Pennsylvania. The first tier of townships, rnnning north and south, lying along the border of Pennsylvania, is Range No. 1; the adjoining tier west is range No. 2, and so on throughout the twenty-four ranges. The township lying next north of the 41st parallel of latitude in each range, is Township No. 1 of that range. The township next north is No. 2, and so on progressively to the lake. It was supposed that there were 4,- 000,000 acres of land between Pennsylvania and the Fire Lands. If the supposition had proved true, the land would have cost 30 cents per acre; as it resulted, there were less than 3,000,- 000 acres. The miscalculation arose from the mistaken assumption that the south shore of Lake Erie bore more nearly west than it does, and also in a mistake made in the length of the east-andwest line. The distance west from the Pennsylvania line, surveyed in 1796-97, was only fifty-six miles, the survey ending at the Tuscarawas River. To reach the western limits of the Reserve a distance of sixty-four miles was to be made. Abraham Tappan and Anson Sessions entered into an agreement with the Land Company, in 1805, to complete the survey of the lands between the Fire Lands and the Cuyahoga. This they did in 1806, and, from the width of Range 19, it is very evident that the distance from the east to the west line of the Reserve is less than one hundred and twenty miles. This range of townships is gore-shaped, and is much less than five miles wide, circumstances leading the company to divide all below

Township 6 into tracts for the purpose of equalization. The west line of Range 19, from north to south, as originally run, bears to the west, and between it and Range 20, as indicated on the map, there is a strip of land, also gore-shaped, that was left in the first instance unsurveyed, the surveyors not knowing the exact whereabouts of the eastern line of the " half-million acres" belonging to the sufferers. In 1806, Amos Spafford, of Cleveland, and Almon Rugeles, of Huron, were agreed on by the two companies to ascertain and locate the line between the Fire Lands and the lands of the Connecticut Company. They first surveyed off the " halfmillion acres" belonging to the "sufferers," and, not agreeing with Seth Pease, who had run out the base and west lines, a dispute arose between the two companies, which was finally adjusted before the draft, by establishing the eastern line of the Fire Lands where it nowis. This left a strip of land east of the Fire Lands, called surplus lands, which was included in range 19, and is embraced in the western tier of townships of Lorain County.

The mode of dividing the land among the individual purchasers, was a little peculiar, though evidently just. An equalizing committee accompanied the surveyors, to make such observations and take such notes of the character of the townships as would enable them to grade them intelligently, and make a just estimate and equalization of their value. The amount of purchase-money was divided into 400 shares of $3,000 a share. Certificates were issued to each owner, showing him to be entitled to such proportion of the entire land, as the amount he paid, bore to the purchase price of the whole. Four townships of the greatest value were first selected from that part of the Western Reserve, to which the Indian title had been extinguished, and were divided into lots. Each township was divided into not less than 100 lots. "The number of lots into which the four townships were divided, would, at least, equal the 400 shares, or a lot to a share, and each person or company of persons entitled to one or more shares of the Reserve - each share being one four-hundredth part of the Reserve - was allowed to participate in the draft that was determined upon for the division of the joint property. The committee appointed to select the four most valuable townships for such division, was directed to select of the remaining townships, a sufficient number, and of the best quality and greatest value, to be used for equalizing purposes. After this selection was made, they were to choose the best remaining township, and this township was the one,to the value of which all others were brought by the equalizing process of annexation, and if there were several of equal value with the one so selected, no annexations were to be made to them. The equalizing townships were cut up into parcels of various size and value, and these parcels were annexed to townships inferior in value to the standard township, and annexations of land from the equalizing townships, were made to the inferior townships, in quantity and quality, sufficient to make all equal in value to the standard adopted. When the townships had thus all been equalized, they were drawn by lot. There were ninety-three equalized parcels drawn east of the Cuyahoga, and forty-six on the west. The draft of the lands east of the river, took place prior to 1800, and of those west of that river, on the 4th day of April, 1807. In the first draft, it required an ownership of $12,903.23 of the original purchase money, to entitle the owner to a township; and in the second draft, it required an ownership of $26,087 in the original purchase-money, to entitle the owner to a township.

'The same mode and plan were followed in each draft. The townships were numbered, and the numbers, on separate pieces of paper, placed in a box. The names of the proprietors who had subscribed, and were the owners of a sufficient amount of the purchase-money to entitle them toatownship, were arranged ia alphabetical order, and when it was necessary for several persons to combine, because not owning severally, a sufficient amount of the purchase-money, or number of shares, to entitle them to a township, the name of the person of the company that stood alphabetically first, was used to represent them in the draft, and in case the small owners were unable, from disagreement among themselves, to unite, a committee was appointed to select and class the proprietors, and those selected were required to associate themselves together, for the purpose of the draft. The township, or parcel of land, corresponding to the first number drawn from the box belonged to the person whose name stood first on the list, or to the persons whom he represented; and the second drawn belonged to the second person, and so down through the list. This was the mode adopted to sever the ownership in common, and to secure to each individual, or company of individuals, their interest in severalty. Soon after the conveyance to the land company, to avoid complications arising from the death of its members, and to facilitate the transmission of titles, the company conveyed the entire purchase, in trust, to John Morgan, John Cadwell and Jonathan Brace; and as titles were wanted, either before or after the division by draft,

Little was known of this country at the time of its purchase by the Land Company. It was formerly inhabited by a nation of Indians called the Erigas or Eries, from which the lake took its name. This nation was at an early date destroyed by the Iroquois. In his * History of New France," published in 1744, in speaking of the south shore of Lake Erie, Charlevoix says: "Ali this shore is nearly unknown." An old French map, made in 1755, to be seen in the rooms of the Western Reserve Historical Society, in Cleveland, names the country between the Cuyahoga and Sandusky Rivers, as Cauahogue ; and east of the Cuyahoga, as Gwahoga. This is also the name given to that river which is made to empty into Cuyahoga Bay; and the country designated as Cauahogue is indicated as the seat of war, the Mart of Trade, and the chief hunting grounds of the Six Nations of the lake. The earliest settlement was on the Reserve, at Warren, in 1798, though salt was made in Weathersfield, Mahoning County, as early as 1755, by whites, who made short sojourns there for that purpose. The number of settlers increased in this section until, in 1800, there were some sixteen families. In 1796, the first surveying party for the Land Company, landed at Conneaut, followed three years later by the first permanent settler. Then followed settlements in Geauga and Cuyahoga, in 1798; in Portageand Lake, in 1799; Summit, in 1800; Lorain, 1807, and Medina, in 1811. "The settlement of the Reserve commenced in a manner somewhat peculiar. Instead of beginning on one side of a county, and progressing gradually into the interior, as had usually been done in similar cases, the proprietors of the Reserve, being governed by different and separate views, began their improvements wherever their individual interests led them. Here we find many of the first settlers immersed in a dense forest, fifteen or twenty miles or more from the abode of any white inhabitants. In consequence of their scattered situation, journeys were sometimes to be performed of twenty or fifty miles, for the sole purpose of having the staple of an ox-yoke mended, or some other mechanical job, in itself trifling, but absolutely essential for the successful prosecution of business. These journeys had to be performed through the wilderness, at a great expense of time, and, in many cases, the only safe guide to direct their course, were the township lines made by the surveyors. The want of mills to grind the first harvest, was in itself a great evil. Prior to 1800, many families used a small hand-mill, properly called a sweat-mill, which took the hard labor of two hours to supply flour enough for one person asingle day. About the year 1800, one or two grist-mills, operating by waterpower, were erected. One of these was at Newburg, now in Cuyahoga Co. But the distance of many of the settlements from the mills, and the want of roads, often rendered the expense of grinding a single bushel equal to the value of two or three.''* Speaking of the settlement of the Fire Lands, C. B. Squier, late of Sandusky City, says: "The largest sufferers, and, consequently, those who held the largest interest in the Fire Lands, purchased the rights of many who held smaller interests. The proprietors of these lands, anxious that their new territory should be settled, offered strong inducements for persons to settle in this then unknown region. It is quite diffieult to ascertain who the first settlers were, upon these lands. As early, if not prior to the organization of the State, several persons had squatted upon the lands at the mouth of the streams and near the shore of the lake, led a hunter's life, and trafficked with the Indians. But they were a race of wanderers, and gradually disappeared before the regular progress of the settlements. Those devoted missionaries, the Moravians, made a settlement, which they called New Salem, as early as 1790, on Huron River, about two miles below Milan. The first regular settlers, however, were Col. Jerard Ward, who came in the spring of 1808, and Almon Ruggles and Jabez Wright, in succeeding autumn." The next year brought a large inflow of immigration, which spread over the greater portion of both Erie and Huron Counties, though the first settlement in Sandusky City was not made until 1817.

It was not until the year 1800 that civil government was organized on the Western Reserve. The Governor and Judges of the Northwest Territory, under the ordinance of 1787, by proclamation in the following year, organized the county of Washington, and included within it all of the Western Reserve east of the Cuyahoga; and in 1796, the year of the first occupation by the whites of the New Connecticut, the county of Wayne was erected, which included over one-ha!f of Ohio, all of the Western Reserve west of the Cuyahoga, with a part of Indiana, all of Michigan, and the Ameri- can portion of Lakes Superior, Huron, St. Clair and Erie, to the mouth of the Cuyahoga, with the county seat at Detroit. In 1797, Jefferson County was established, and the Western Reserve, east of the Cuyahoga, became a part of it, by restricting the limits of Washington. Connecticut and the Land Company refused to recognize the right of the General Government to make such disposition of the Reserve. The act of including this territory within the counties of Washington, Jefferson and Wayne, they declared to be unwarranted, and the power of Congress to prescribe rules for the government of the same, they denied, and from the opening settlement in 1796, until the transfer of jurisdiction to the General Government was complete, on May 30, 1800, the new settlers were entirely without municipallaws. There was no regulation governing the transmission of, or success to, property on the decease of the owner; no regulations ofany kind securing the protection of rights, or the redress of wrongs. The want of laws for the government of the settlers was seriously felt, and as early as 1790, the company petitioned the Legislature of Connecticut to erect the Reserve into a county, with proper and suitable laws to regulate the internal policy of the territory for a limited period. This petition, however, was not granted, and for upward of four years the intercourse and conduct of the early settlers were regulated and restrained only by their New England sense of justice and right. But on the 10th of July, 1800, after Connecticut had released her jurisdiction to the United States, the Western Reserve was erected into a county, by the name of Trumbull, in honor of the Governor of Connecticut, by the civil authority of Ohio. At the election in the fall of that year, Edward Paine received thirty-eight votes out of the forty-two cast, for member of the Territorial Legislature. "The election was held at Warren, the county seat, and was the first participation that the settlers had in the affairs of government here. During the same year the Court of Quarter Sessions, a tribunal that did not survive the Constitution of 1802, was established and organized, and by it the county was divided into eight organized townships. Thetownship of Cleveland was one, and embraced a large portion of territory east of the Cuyahoga, but all the Reserve lying west of that river. On December 1, 1805, Geauga County was erected. It included within its limits, nearly all the present counties of Ashtabula, Geauga, Lake and Cuyahoga. On February 10, 1807, there was a more general division into counties. "That part of the Western Reserve lying west of the Cuyahoga and north of part thereof until Cuyahoga should be organized. In the same year Ashtabula was erected out of Trumbull and Geauga, to be organized whenever its population would warrant it ; also, all that part of Trumbull which lay west of the fifth range of townships, was erected into a county by the name of Portage, all of the Western Reserve west of the Cuyahoga and south of Township No. 5, being attached to it. The county of Cuyahoga was formed out of Geauga, on the same date, February 10, 1807, to be organized whenever its population should be sufficient to require it, which occurred in 1810.

On February 8, 1809, Huron County was erected into a county, covering the Fire Lands, but to remain attached to Geauga and Portage, for the time being, for purposes of government. The eastern boundary of this county was subsequently, in 1811, moved forward to the Black River, but, in the year 1822, it was given its present boundaries, and, in 1838, Erie County was erected, dividing its territory. On the 18th of February, 1812, Medina was formed, and comprised all the territory between the eleventh range of townships and Huron County, and south of Township No. 5. It was attached to Portage, however, until January 14, 1818, when it received an independent organization. Lorain County was formed on the 26th day of December, 1822, from the outlying portions of Huron, Medina and Cuyahoga Counties. It was organized with an independent local administration, January 21, 1824. In 1840, were organized Summit County, on March 3, and Lake County on March 6; the former drawing from Medina and Portage, and taking two townships from Stark County, and the latter being formed from Geauga and Cuyahoga. In 1846, Ashiand County was formed, taking three townships of the Reserve, on February 26, and Mahoning, on March 1, taking ten townships from Trumbull, leaving the boundaries of the Reserve as marked at present.

In the history of its social development, the Western Reserve is not less interesting or peculiar than in the beginning of its material interests. The history of the mother State was peculiar, and the Reserve, it was fondly hoped, would be a reproduction of the maternal features and graces, a New Connecticut. A chronicler* of the early ~~ *Charles W. Elliott.

history of New England, writing of the New ven Colony of 1637, says: "During the first year, little ' government' was needed or exercised. Each man was a lord to himself. On the 4th of June (1638), the settlers met in Mr. Neuman's barn, and bound themselves by a sort of Constitution. * * * They decided to make the Bible their law-book ; but by and by new towns were made, and new laws were needed, and they had the good sense to make them. Their State was founded upon their church, thus expressed in their first compact, signed by one hundred and eleven persons: 'That church members only shall be free Burgesses, and that they only shall choose Magistrates and officers among themselves, to have the power of transacting all publique evil affairs of this plantation, of making and repealing laws, dividing of inheritances, deciding of differences that may arise, and doing all things or businesses of like nature." Twenty-seven years later, when circumstances made a union of the two Connecticut Colonies necessary, the greatest and most lasting objection on the part of the New Haven Colony was the lessening of the civil power of the church which would follow the union. In 1680, the Governor of the United Colonies, thus describes the community: 'The people are strict Congregationalists. There are four or five Sevenday men, and about as many Quakers. We have twenty-six towns and twenty-one churches. Beggars and vagabonds are not suffered, but are bound out to service." These characteristics of Connecticut have been marked by all historians as well as the facts, that she " Early established and supported schools and colleges; her people have, from the outset, been industrious and honest; crime has not abounded; while talent and character, and courage and cleanliness, have been common through all her history." It was to reproduce these characteristics throughout the territory embraced within the provisions of her charter, that the mother State labored. For one hundred and thirty years she followed this purpose with an undeviating method. " One tract after another, sufficient for a municipal government, was granted to trusty men, who were to form a settlement of well-assorted families, with the church, the meeting house, the settled ministry of the Gospel, the school, the local magistracy, and the democratic town-meeting represented in the General Assembly. Under this method, se!f-governed towns in what is now a part of Pennsylvania, were once represented in the General Assembly at Hartford and New Haven."* It was with the hope of extending this method to the Reserve that Connecticut so strenuously asserted her jurisdiction to her Western lands; but in the years of rapid growth succeeding the war of the Revolution, the old method proved no longer practicable, and the parent surrendered her offspring to the hands of abler guardians. But there remained a field in which solicitous regard could find action, and the impress of her work in this direction is plainly apparent to this day. It was her method of " missions to the new settlements" which had become crystallized into a system about this time. Of the scope and character of this work, Rey. Leonard Bacon thus speaks: "At first, individual pastors, encouraged by their brethren, and obtaining permission from their churches, performed long and weary journeys on horseback into Vermont and the great wilderness of Central New York, that they might preach the Word and administer the ordinances of religion to such members of their flocks, and others, as had emigrated beyond the reach of ordinary New England privileges. By degrees the work was enlarged, and arrangements for sustaining it were systematized, till in the year 1798, the same year in which the settlement of the Reserve began, the pastors of Connecticut, in their General Association, instituted the Missionary Society of Connecticut. In 1802, one year after the jurisdiction of the old State over the Reserve was formally relinquished, the Trustees of the Missionary Society were incorporated. As early as 1800, only two years alter the first few families from Connecticut had planted themselves this side of Northwestern Pennsylvania, the first missionary made his appearance among them. This was the Rev. Joseph Badger, the apostle of the Western Reserve - a man of large and various experience, as well as of native force, and of venerable simplicity in character and manners. In those days the work of the missionary to the new settlements was by no means the same with what is now ca!lcd ' Home Missionary' work. Our modern Home Missionary has his station and his home; his business is to gather around himself a permanent congregation; his hope is to grow up with the congregation which he gathers, and the aid which he receives is given to help the church support its pa-tor. But the old-fashioned 'missionary to the new settlements,' was an itinerant. He had no station and no settled home. If he had a family, his work was continually calling him away from them. He went from one little settlement to another - from one lonely cabin to another - preaching from house to house, and not often spending two consecutive Sabbaths in one place. The nature of the emigration to the wilderness, in those days, required such labors.

"Tt was soon felt that two missionaries were needed for the work among the scattered settlements. Accordingly, the Rev. Ezekiel J. Chapman was sent. He arrived on the Reserve at the close of the year 1801, and returned to Connecticut in April, 1803. His place was soon supplied by a young man ordained expressly to the work, the Rev. Thomas Robbins, who continued laboring in this field from November, 1803, till April, 1800. In a letter of his, dated June 8, 1505, I find the following statement: 'Since the beginniog of the present year, I have been taking pains to make an actual enumeration of the families in this county.* The work I have just completed. "There are one or more families in sixtyfour towns. January 1, 1804, the number of families was about 800. The first of last January there were a little more than 1100, of which 450 are Yankees. There were twenty-four schools. There are seven churches, with a prispect that two more will be organized soon, and more than twenty places where the worship of God is regu- Jarly maintained on the Sabbath.'" Such was the beginning of an influence to which the people of the Reserve are principally indebted for the early and secure foundation of the church and school, and for that individuality which marks them as a peculiar and envied people in a great commonwealth made up of the chosen intellect and brawn of a whole nation.

Owing to the peculiar relation of the Reserve to the General Government in early years. the history of its publie school fund isexceptional. By the ordinance of Congress in 1785, it was declared that Section 16 of every township should be reserved for the maintenance of publie schools in the township. The ordinance of 1787, re-affirmed the policy thus declared. The provisions of these ordinances, in this respect, were not applicable to, nor operative over, the region of the Reserve, because of the fact that the United States did not own its soil; and, although the entire amount paid to Connecticut by the Land Company for the terri- no part of that fund was appropriated to parposes of education here. advantages between the people of the Reserve-and This inequality was, however, in a measure removed in 1803, by an act of Congress, which set apart and appropriated to the Western Reserve, as an equivalent for Section 16, a sufficient quantity of land in the United States Military District, to compensate the loss of that section, in the lands lying east of the Cuyahoga. This amount was equal to onethirty-sixth of the land of the reserve, to which the Indian title had before that time been extinguished. The Indian title to the lands of the Reserve west of the Cuyahoga, not then having been extinguished, the matter seemed to drop from public notice, and remain so until 1829. At this date, the Legislature, in a memorial to Congress, directed its attention to the fact, that, by the treaty of Fort Industry, concluded in 1805, the Indian title to the land west of the Cuyahoga, had been relinquished to the United States, and prayed in recognition of the fact, that an additional amount of land lying within the United States Military District, should be set apart for the use of the public schools of the Reserve, and equal in quantity to one thirty-sixth of the territory ceded to the United States by that treaty. The memorial produced the desired result. In 1834, Congress, in compliance with a request of the Legislature, granted such an additional amount of land to the Reserve for school purposes, as to equalize its distribution of lands for such purpose, and in furtherance of its object to carry into effect its determination to donate one thirty-sixth part of the public domain to the purposes of education. The lands first allotted to the Reserve for such purpose, were situated in the Counties of Holmes and Tuscarawas, and in 1831, were surveyed and sold, the proceeds arising from their sale as well as the funds arising from the sale of those subsequently appropriated, being placed and invested with other