Blazes, Posts & Stones: A History of Ohio’s Original Land Subdivisions [1 ed.] 9781937378516, 9781937378479

Citation preview

Blazes, Posts, & Stones

Blazes, Posts, & Stones A History of Ohio’s Original Land Subdivisions

James L. Williams

Compass & Chain Publishing® Columbus, Ohio * 2015

Publisher’s Note: This book has been printed on the best available paper.

Editorial Supervision: Denice W. Williams

Copyright © 2013 by James L. Williams

Manufactured in the United States of America

ISBN 978-1-937378-47-9

Contents List of Drawings, Plats, and Maps vii Author’s Note xv A Note on the Maps and Plats xvii Preface xix Acknowledgments xxi Introduction 1 Land Act of 1785 6 1.   The Old Seven Ranges 17 2.   The Ohio Company’s Purchase 41 3.   The Donation Tract 85 4.   The Virginia Military District 95 5.   The Symmes Purchase 148 The Indian War of 1790–1795 181 6.   The French Grants 226 The Land Act of 1796 238 7.   The US Military District 257 8.   Congress Lands of 1796 East of the Scioto 282 9.   Congress Lands of 1796 West of the Miami River or East of the Meridian 310 10.   Congress Lands of 1796 North of the Old Seven Ranges 326 11.   The Muskingum River Survey 340 12.   The Refugee Tract 345 13.   Congress Lands of 1801 between the Miami Rivers 357 14.   The Connecticut Western Reserve 391 15.   Congress Lands of 1805, North of the US Military Tract &      West of the Muskingum River 444 16.   The Fire Lands or Sufferers’ Lands 456 17.   The Twelve Mile Square Reserve 467 18.   Congress Lands South of the Baseline and East of the Meridian 485 19.   Congress Lands North of the Baseline and East of the 1st Meridian 505 20.   Michigan Meridian Survey 520 Afterword 543 Index 547

List of Drawings, Plats, and Maps f-1  Twenty Original Land Subdivisions of Ohio f-2  Point of Beginning monument near East Liverpool I-1  Township subdivision per the Land Act of 1785 I-2  Thomas Hutchins’ map of the Ohio Valley, 1778 I-3  Thomas Hutchins’ map of Pittsburg I-4  Map of the south and west lines of Pennsylvania I-5  Map of the Ohio River from Fort McIntosh to the surveyors’ camp 1-1  Map of the Old Seven Ranges by Thomas Hutchins 1-2  Map of the surveys of 1786 by Thomas Hutchins 1-3  Plat of Township 5, Range I by Absalom Martin 1-4  Plat of Township 3, Range II by Absalom Martin 1-5  Plat of Township 4, Range II by Absalom Martin 1-6  Plat of Township 6, Range III by Isaac Sherman 1-7  Plats of Townships 8, Ranges II and III, Old Seven Ranges 1-8  Examples of Township and Section corners in the Seven Ranges 2-1  Map of the Ohio Company’s Purchase by Rufus Putnam 2-2  Map of Washington County, 1788 2-3  Map of Fort Harmar, 1785–1789 2-4  Plat of Townships 1 and 2, Range VIII by Rufus Putnam 2-5  Plan of Campus Martius by Winthrop Sargent 2-6  Plan of the town of Marietta by Rufus Putnam, 1802 2-7  Plat of Township 12, Range XV, Ohio Company’s Purchase 2-8  Plat of Townships 8 & 9, Range XI, Ohio Company’s Purchase 2-9  Survey of 1,781,760 Acres for Alexander Hamilton by Israel Ludlow 2-10  Plat of Townships 8 & 9, Range XIV College Lands 2-11  Plat of Township 8, Range XVI, Ohio Company’s Purchase 2-12  Plat of Township 4, Range XV, Ohio Company’s Purchase 2-13  Plat of Township 1, Range IX, by Rufus Putnam 2-14  Plat of Townships 1, Ranges XI and XII by Rufus Putnam 2-15  Plat of the Town of Athens, 1800 by Levi Whipple 3-1  Map of the Donation Tract 3-2  Plat of the Donation Tract

xiii xv 5 11 14 15 16 19 25 27 29 32 34 36 38 43 45 47 49 51 53 55 59 62 66 68 69 70 74 82 86 88

vii

3-3  Plan of Fort Frye, 1791 4-1  List of Virginia Military Warrants 4-2  Map of the Virginia Military District 4-3  Map of the rivers and creeks in the Virginia Military District 4-4  Plan of Chillicothe by Nathaniel Massie 4-5  Virginia Military Surveys on the Scioto River at Paint Creek 4-6  Map of V.M.S. in Paint, Buckskin, and Twin Townships, Ross County 4-7  Map of V.M.S. at the Forks of the Scioto River 4-8  Plat of V.M.S. No.1393 on the Scioto River 4-9  Plan of Franklinton, 1797 by Lucas Sullivant 4-10  Map of V.M.S. along the Greenville Treaty Line by Alexander Bourne 4-11  Map of V.M.S. No. 14147 between the Ludlow and Robert’s Lines 4-12  Survey by James Heaton connecting the Robert’s Line to the Scioto River 4-13  Map of Adams County, 1797 4-14  Map of Ross County, 1798 4-15  Plat and Description of V.M.S. No. 15882, Scioto County, 1851 4-16  Plat of V.M.S. No. 12566, upper and lower Twin Creeks in Ross County 4-17  Plat of V.M.S. No. 15890, Scioto County 4-18  Examples of Virginia Military Surveys 4-19  Virginia Military Surveys Nos. 13368, 13221, and 13168 4-20  Virginia Military Surveys Nos. 13339, 12634–12639, and 13088 4-21  Virginia Military Survey No. 13015 5-1  Plan of Cincinnati by Israel Ludlow 5-2  Map of the Miami Purchase of 311,682 Acres by Israel Ludlow, 1794 5-3  Map of Symmes’ Miami Purchase by John C. Symmes 5-4  Map of Fort Washington 5-5  Plan of Fort Washington built in the year 1789 5-6  Settlements of the Miami Purchase by John S. Gano, 1795 5-7  Plan of Dunlap’s Station, 1791 on the Great Miami River 5-8  Description of 311,682.28 Acres sold to John Cleves Symmes 5-9  Map of the John C. Symmes Purchase, 1794 5.5-1  Map of the Indian Campaigns of 1776–1786 5.5-2  Map of the Routes, Camps, and Marches of the US Army, 1790 5.5-3  Battles of the Miami Towns, 1790 5.5-4  Routes, Camps, and Marches of the US Army to the Wabash, 1791 5.5-5  St. Clair’s Defeat on the Wabash River, November 4, 1791

viii

91 93 94 102 105 106 109 116 118 120 122 124 126 130 131 134 137 138 140 143 145 147 153 156 159 161 162 165 168 171 175 180 185 187 193 199

5.5-6  Routes, Camps, and Marches of the Legion of the United States, 1794 5.5-7  Map of the Battle of Fallen Timbers, August 20, 1794 6-1  Plan of Gallipolis in Township 3, Range XIV, Ohio Company Purchase 6-2  Map of the French Grants, 1796 by Absalom Martin 6.5-1  Township subdivision per the Land Act of 1796 6.5-2  Map of the Greenville Treaty Line of 1797 by Israel Ludlow, D.S. 6.5-3  Indian Boundary Line Point of Beginning at the “Crossing Place” 6.5-4  Map of the Indian Boundary Line to the Scioto River 6.5-5  Map of the Indian Boundary Line to the Great Miami River 6.5-6  Map of the Indian Boundary Line at the forks of Loramie’s Creek 6.5-7  Map of the Indian Boundary Line at Fort Recovery, 1799 7-1  Map of the United States Military Lands 7-2  Plat of Township 10, Range II by Absalom Martin, 1798 7-3  Plan of the Western District, US Military Lands by Israel Ludlow, 1797 7-4  Plat of the Western District, US Military Lands by Israel Ludlow, 1798 7-5  Plat of the United States Military District, 1798 7-6  Survey of part of Range XIII, U.S.M.L. by Israel Ludlow, 1797 7-7  Plat of Township 7, Range XIII US Military District by Israel Ludlow 7-8  Plat of Township 6, Range XX, US Military District by Israel Ludlow 7-9  Plat of Townships in Ranges XV and XVI, U.S. M.L. by Wm. C. Schenck 7-10  Plat of Township 2, Range XVI, US Military Lands, 1797 7-11  Plat of the United States Military District 8-1  Congress Lands East of the Scioto River, 1798 8-2  Plat of Township 5, Range XXII, Congress Lands East of the Scioto 8-3  Map of Ranges XII and XIII, Congress Lands East of the Scioto River 8-4  Plat of Township 11, Range XIII, Congress Lands East of the Scioto River 8-5  Plat of Range XII surveyed by Zacheus Biggs, 1798 8-6  Plat of Township 10, Range XI surveyed by Zacheus Biggs, 1798 8-7  Congress Lands East of the Scioto River, 1799 8-8  Plan of Survey of Range XXI, East of the Scioto River 8-9  Plat of Township 5, Range IX surveyed by Benjamin F. Stone, 1801 8-10  Plat of part of Township 16, Range XIV at Forks of the Muskingum 8-11  Plat of Zanestown (Zanesville), 1800 8-12  Plat of townships around Zane’s Grant on the Hockhocking River 8-13  Plat of Zane’s Grant on the Scioto River, 1799 8-14  Plat of Township 1, Ranges XXI and XXII on the Ohio River

212 217 230 234 239 244 246 249 251 253 255 259 262 265 267 270 272 274 276 278 279 281 284 286 289 291 293 294 296 299 300 302 303 304 306 307

ix

8-15  Congress Lands East of the Scioto River, 1802 9-1  Congress Lands East of the Meridian, 1798 9-2  Congress Lands East of the Meridian, 1799 9-3  Plat of Township 15, Range I East by Daniel C. Cooper, 1800 9-4  Plat of Townships 11 and 12, Range IV East by Daniel C. Cooper, 1800 9-5  Congress Lands East of the Meridian, 1802 9-6  Map of the surveys of Piqua and Fort Piqua 10-1  Congress Lands North of the Old Seven Ranges, 1799 10-2  Plat of Township 9, Range IX by Ebenezer Buckingham, 1799 10-3  Congress Lands North of the Old Seven Ranges, 1801 10-4  Plat of Township 19, Range VI by Zacheus Biggs, 1799 10-5  Map of Columbiana County, 1803 11-1  The Muskingum River Survey 12-1  Map of the Refugee Lands 12-2  Plat of Township 5, Range XXII, Refugee Lands, 1801 12-3  Plat of Township 17, Range XVIII, Refugee Lands, 1801 12-4  Plat of Columbus by Joel Wright, 1812 12-5  Map of Franklinton and Columbus 13-2  Map of Dayton by Israel Ludlow, 1795 13-3  Plat of Dayton by Israel Ludlow revised by Daniel C. Cooper, 1805 13-4  Plat of Range IV, Between the Miami Rivers by Israel Ludlow, 1802 13-5  Plat of Range V, Between the Miami Rivers 13-6  Plat of Range VI, Between the Miami Rivers 13-7  Surveys Between the Miami Rivers, 1802 13-8  Plat of Township 1, Range VII, Between the Miami Rivers, 1802 13-9  Plat of the North 20 degrees West line by Israel Ludlow, 1803 13-10  Map of the Ludlow Line of 1803 and the Robert’s Line of 1812 13-11  Map of the survey Between the Miami Rivers, 1803 13-12  Map of the state of Ohio by Rufus Putnam, 1803 13-13  Map of Franklin County, 1803 14-1  Map of the Western Boundary of Pennsylvania, 1786 14-2  Surveys of New Connecticut by Augustus Porter, 1796 14-3  Plan for Euclid Township, 1796 14-4  Plat of the Salt Springs Tract, 1797 14-5  Map of New Connecticut by Seth Pease, 1798 14-6  Map of Washington County, 1788

x

308 313 315 318 320 323 325 328 332 334 336 339 341 347 349 351 353 355 359 361 363 365 367 370 372 374 384 387 389 390 393 401 404 409 413 415

14-7  Map of Jefferson County, 1797 14-8  Map of Trumbull County, 1800 14-9  Plat of Township 2, Range X, Tallmadge Township 14-10  Plat of Township 11, Range V, Harpersfield Township 14-11  Plat of Township 1, Range X, Springfield Township 14-12  Plat of Township 2, Range I, Coitsville Township 14-13  Plat of Township 8, Range XI, Euclid Township 14-14  Survey of 1806 by Abraham Tappen for the Connecticut Land Company 14-15  Map of the South Line of the Western Reserve 14-16  Map showing the 1806 Seth Pease corner of the Western Reserve 14-18  Map of Geauga County, 1806 14-19  Map of County Boundary Lines, 1810 15-1  Plat of a township per the Land Act of 1805 15-2  Congress Lands of 1805 North of the US Military District 15-3  Plat of Township 19, Range XIX by Maxfield Ludlow, 1807 15-4  Plat of Township 18, Range XXI by Maxfield Ludlow, 1807 16-1  Map of the Coastal Towns of Connecticut burned by the British 16-2  Map of the Fire Lands, 1808 17-1  Map of the Reserve of 12 Miles Square, Maumee Rapids 17-2  Plat of Township 1, Lower Rapids of the Maumee River Meridian 17-3  Plat of Township 2, Lower Rapids of the Maumee River Meridian 17-4  Plat of Township 3, Lower Rapids of the Maumee River Meridian 17-5  Plat of Township 4, Lower Rapids of the Maumee River Meridian 18-2  Map of Northwest Ohio, showing Indian Reserves, 1818 18-3  Plat of Ranges I through V, East of the 1st Meridian 18-4  Map of Indian Grants along the St. Mary’s River, 1818 18-5  Plat of Ranges VI through X, East of the 1st Meridian 18-6  Fee Simple Indian Grants along the Greenville Treaty Line, 1820 18-7  Plat of Ranges XI through XVII, East of the 1st Meridian 19-2  Plat of the Reserve of Two Miles Square, Sandusky River 19-3  Townships North, Ranges I through V, East of the 1st Meridian 19-4  Townships North, Ranges VI through X, East of the 1st Meridian 19-5  Township North, Ranges XI through XV, East of the 1st Meridian 19-6  Township North, Ranges XVI through XVIII, East of 1st Meridian 19-7  Township 1, Range XVII and Township 1, Range XVIII 20-2  Map of the Michigan Meridian and Detroit Baseline, 1815

416 418 421 423 424 425 426 429 431 436 439 440 443 446 450 454 457 461 470 473 475 479 481 489 491 493 495 497 499 507 509 511 513 515 517 523

xi

20-3  Map of the Survey to Ascertain the Western Boundary of Ohio, 1817 20-4  Survey Between the Old and New North Boundary of Ohio 20-5  Plat of Townships 9 and 10 South, Range I East of the Michigan Meridian 20-6  Townships 9 and 10 South, Ranges I through IV West of the Michigan Meridian 20-7  Plat of Townships 9 and 10 South, Range IV West of the Michigan Meridian 20-8  Plat of Townships 9 and 10 South, Range VIII East of Michigan Meridian A-1  Map of County Boundary Lines, 1820

xii

525 530 532 534 536 538 545

Figure f-1. 1. The Old Seven Ranges 2. The Ohio Company’s Purchase 3. The Donation Tract 4. The Virginia Military District 5. The Symmes’ Miami Purchase 6. The French Grants 7. The U.S. Military District 8. Congress Lands East of the Scioto 9. Congress Lands West of the Miami 10. Congress Lands North of the Seven Ranges 11. The Muskingum River Survey

12. The Refugee Tract 13. Between the Miami Rivers 14. Connecticut Western Reserve 15. Congress Lands North of the Military Tract & West of the Muskingum River 16. The Fire Lands or Sufferer’s Lands 17. The Twelve Mile Square Reserve 18. Congress Lands South & East 19. Congress Lands North & East 20. The Michigan Meridian Survey

xiii

Edmund Gunter (1581–1626), Welsh Mathematician, London The length of one Gunter’s chain = 66 feet. One Gunter’s chain = 100 links, therefore, one link = 0.66 feet. One rod (pole or perch) = 16.5 feet, therefore, one Gunter’s chain = 4 rods. One mile = 80 Gunter’s chains (80 x 66 = 5280). One acre = 43,560 square feet (208.71 ft. square). One acre = 10 square chains (66 ft. x 66 ft. = 4356 sq. ft.). A square 10 chains by 10 chains (660 ft. x 660 ft.) = 10 acres. A square 20 chains by 20 chains = 40 acres. A square 30 chains by 30 chains = 90 acres. A square 40 chains by 40 chains = 160 acres. A square 80 chains by 80 chains = 640 acres. A section = 640 acres, nominally. A township nominally is 6 miles square (there are two exceptions in Ohio). A township is therefore, 6 x 80 or 480 chains on a side. The two exceptions to the 6 mile square township are: 1. The US Military Lands and 2. The Connecticut Western Reserve. They are 5 miles square.

xiv

Author’s Note To the reader: As research accumulated in regard to this manuscript, it soon became evident that twenty-three divisions were demanding an expository treatment. Kilbourne, Peters, and Sherman all called for a new book containing twenty chapters. What was an author to do? After discussing this conundrum with several writers it became clear that the three lessor divisions had not earned chapter status. They, however, are necessary to the complete narrative. Therefore, The Land Act of 1785, The Indian War of 1790–1795 and The Land Act of 1796 are included in their correct chronological time frame but do not have chapter designations.

Figure f-2

xv

A Note on the Maps and Plats This book contains 180 redrafted drawings, maps, and plats. All are hand-drawn, based on the original information, and presented in period style as if by the same hand. Care has been taken to accurately reproduce distances shown on the plats of the townships. Distances shown are in chains and links (1 chain = 66 feet and 100 links = 1 chain). Distances shown in the Virginia Military District are in poles or rods (1 pole = 16.5 feet). Several of the originals were so deteriorated that measurements were barely legible. To these maps much information useful to the reader and researcher, not shown on the originals, has been added. For example, the name of the surveyor who surveyed each township, subdivision, section, dates, key distances, and so on. As well, in cases where no original map existed or could be found, this work presents its own map based on the field notes of the deputy surveyor. The original maps, herein redrafted, are by: •  Thomas Hutchins (Library of Congress and National Archives and Records Administration), •  Rufus Putnam (Legacy Library, Marietta College), •  Richard C. Anderson (Illinois Historical Society), •  Israel Ludlow (National Archives), •  Seth Pease (Western Reserve Historical Society), •  Absalom Martin (National Archives), •  Samuel Williams (Ohio Historical Society), and •  W. D. Trumbull (The Ohio State University). Liberty has been taken to enlarge and present only the portion of a map relevant to the text.

xvii

Preface An extended work of at least twenty chapters could be written on as many different areas within Ohio, each of which has its own peculiarities of original subdivision. —Christopher E. Sherman, Original Ohio Land Subdivisions, Vol. III, 1925, p. 11

This is that work. Its purpose is to extend, present, and preserve the history of the surveys of the twenty Ohio land subdivisions shown in Figure 1. Relying in most cases on original source materials and providing information not previously published or widely available, the intent of this work is to broaden the base of knowledge with respect to the early surveyors themselves, present their stories, surveys and backgrounds to the public, and preserve this research for County Engineers, professional surveyors, historians and future generations.

xix

Acknowledgments A work of this nature cannot be accomplished by one person, therefore those who have assisted in the creation of this work must be acknowledged. My wife, Denice Workman Williams, a former editor for Merrill Publishing, gave of her time freely to ensure the correctness of this manuscript and tolerated my many years digging in the informational gold mine that is the Ohio Historical Society. Each day as I returned home she would ask what jewels of knowledge had I found that day. After six years of searching for Captain Zacheus Biggs’ field notes for the Congress Lands East of the Scioto, one day in March 2008, they were found, unmarked and unrecorded on any list or index. Upon my return home, my wife shared in my joy as I showed her copies of Captain Biggs’ field notes, all ninety-four pages. Good friend Mike Buettner has provided many helpful items and impressive research necessary to enlighten certain areas of the State such as the forks of Loramie’s Creek, Fort Recovery, and Bourne’s Baseline. Good friend Chuck Coutillier, considered one of the foremost authorities on the Virginia Military Reserve, has assisted in numerous ways and with constant research and support. Mike and Ann Besch, faculty members of The University of Akron, have always been very helpful and enthusiastic supporters of this project and their encouragement has kept it going forward on several occasions. At their urging, I stood by Israel Ludlow’s bottom oak tree at the Point of Beginning of the Greenville Treaty Line and looked toward the forks of Loramie’s Creek. My good friend and brother in Christ, Dean Ringle, a consummate professional and Franklin County Engineer has always been a passionate ally and staunch supporter of this project. Dean carefully read the entire manuscript before it went to the publishers. Carol Slatter of the University of Akron Press has proved herself indefatigable in the production of this manuscript. Dr. Richard Walker of Stockport, Ohio and Springfield, Illinois has critically guided the manuscript through several defiles. Thomas Aquinas Burke, John Haas and the staff of the Ohio Historical Society have helped find materials in the Archives for many years and they are to be sincerely thanked. Linda Showalter of the Marietta College, Dawes Memorial Library, Special Collections, has been very helpful as well as Ann Sindelar of the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland. Pat Medert of the McKell Library in Chillicothe has provided much information regarding the Virginia Military District and the early history of Chillicothe. Many thanks go out to the County Engineer’s Association of Ohio and the many County Engineers who supplied original survey information to the author regarding their counties. You are the keepers of this Holy Grail; on you we depend. I must also thank the several County Auditors from around the State who contributed to this work. I am especially indebted to the late John Cushing of Berea, Ohio, who with his generosity and support made all of this possible. Heartfelt thanks, John! xxi

I thank Heather Enlow-Novitsky, Esq. of Charlotte, NC, who guided the new maps through the federal Copyright Office with much care and expertise. Much gratitude is owed to the Professional Land Surveyors of Ohio and to the County Engineers Association of Ohio for providing many opportunities to lecture on this subject at conventions and seminars around the State for the past twenty-six years. I would also like to thank: Dr. James (Bud) Robertson, Professor Emeritus of History, Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, VA for his kind words of support; Colonel Keith Gibson, Virginia Military Institute, Lexington, VA and all the VMI Cadets who attended my lectures and were so enthusiastic regarding my maps; and Dr. Fletcher Collins and his wife Margaret, retired professors of Medieval Drama at Mary Baldwin College, Staunton, VA for their hospitality and encouragement through the years. All the people who have attended my seminars in Ohio and have written so many kind words of appreciation on the evaluations have kept this research ongoing! THANK YOU! Although many have contributed and helped with this work, it is with great honor that I dedicate this book to the late Dr. R. Ben Buckner, retired professor of Surveying and Mapping, East Tennessee State University and former professor of Surveying at The Ohio State University, a great teacher, and a good friend for many years. This is for you, Professor Buckner.

xxii

Introduction A Map is a condensed history of God’s creation and man’s accomplishments.

In the twilight of his years, Samuel Williams labored day and night to complete his work transcribing the original field notes and preparing the plats to go with them. His dimly lit workspace in the old General Land Office building in Cincinnati was filled with stacks of field books and plats from the original deputy surveyors. Williams had reached that period in life when he could do what he valued most; he chose to prepare that which would be most useful to his fellow Ohioans. Williams’ efforts in the early 1840s corresponded with the final federal surveys in the state of Ohio, mostly the old Indian Reserves in Northwest Ohio. He knew that this information must be preserved. Future generations of land surveyors and title attorneys would need this material to guarantee clear title to real estate in Ohio. The complexity and diversity of the many government survey systems was unlike any other state in the Union. After all, Ohio had been the testing ground of the Continental Congress in 1785 for the Rectangular Survey System first envisioned by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Hutchins, and Rufus Putnam. In 1796 the Congress of the United States, created when the Constitution was ratified in 1789, subdivided the Old Northwest Territory. The Land Act of 1796 developed new methods of subdivision. The Act of 1796 created, among other things, the office of Surveyor General of the United States. The first man to hold that rank was Brigadier General Rufus Putnam of Marietta. President Thomas Jefferson replaced Surveyor General Putnam in 1803 with Professor Jared Mansfield. With the commencement of the War of 1812, Mansfield returned to the US Military Academy at West Point. Samuel Williams served in the United States Army during the War of 1812. After the war, Edward Tiffin, Commissioner of the General Land Office in Washington City, hired Samuel Williams. Williams came to Ohio with Surveyor General Tiffin in 1815 and was appointed Chief Clerk of that office. Williams organized and preserved these plats and field notes over the next thirty years. Many corners of 1785 and 1796 were rotted away by the passing years and blazes, posts, and stones were lost in the wagon tracks of time. Who would keep the old days alive? Samuel Williams was the only one. Thomas Hutchins, Rufus Putnam, Jared Mansfield, and Edward Tiffin were gone. Israel Ludlow died at the young age of thirty-nine in 1804. The stacks of notes and plats that they produced in their lifetimes now rested in Williams’ care, so day and night he toiled. The Northwest Territory had been the wild western frontier of the United States for many years. So dense were the forests that the first surveyors believed that a squirrel could travel

1

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

from the Ohio River to Lake Erie without ever touching the ground. Wolves, bears, and wildcats roamed the forests at night. Hostile Indians prowled the trails and rivers seeking to terrify and drive out the new settlers. Spurred on by the British, who refused to admit that they had been defeated by Washington’s army and had surrendered the Ohio Valley to the newly created United States, the Indians waged a savagely brutal war against all those who dared to cross the Ohio River. They attacked boats traveling down the Ohio River by displaying captured female settlers who begged for help from the passing boats. If the boat ventured too close to the shore, the Indians would attack, kill, and scalp those aboard. It was a vicious and terrifying time to be on the western frontier. Into this wild, violent, and bitterly contested wilderness ventured Thomas Hutchins, Geographer of the United States, and his small band of state-appointed surveyors in 1785. Hutchins and his Gentlemen Surveyors were followed by Rufus Putnam and the Ohio Company’s surveyors in 1788, and they in time, by John Cleves Symmes and his New Jersey surveyors including Israel Ludlow, John Dunlap, and John S. Gano. They were followed by the Connecticut Land Company surveyors led by General Moses Cleaveland, Augustus Porter, and Seth Pease in 1796.The Virginia Military District surveyors including Nathaniel Massie, Duncan McArthur, and Lucas Sullivant surveyed from 1789 to the 1800s. Surveyors dragged their chains from the Muskingum River to the Great Miami, to the Cuyahoga River, and to the Auglaize River. Surveyors set posts at the corners and placed a massive grid upon the land that was to become the state of Ohio. This is their story, a story of unknown expectations, travails, defeats, struggles, and finally success. It took almost fifty-eight years and the lives of many good men but by the 1840s, the grid of north-south and east-west lines had been completed. The Federal Rectangular Survey System was born. That system pioneered the survey prior-to-sale concept and was used in every state admitted to the Union after Ohio, except Texas. In 1846 Samuel Williams put down his drafting equipment for the last time and closed the last large leather-bound volume of notes. Later, this massive mountain of material was moved by horse drawn wagons from Cincinnati to Columbus where it was placed in the rear of the Statehouse. It seemed to have been forgotten until the early 1900s when an attorney and surveyor from Athens, Ohio named William E. Peters started digging into the old, dusty volumes. Peters’ attempt was the second to explain the confusing morass of survey systems to be found in Ohio.1 There were six-mile-square townships and five-mile-square townships; there was a place where the townships and ranges had been reversed; there was a place where no rectangular survey lines existed at all, just lines going everywhere, and there was a place with only townships and no ranges. There appeared to be over twenty different survey systems in the state of Ohio.

2

1. John Kilbourne of Worthington, Ohio published his Ohio Gazetteer in 1816 and 1817. Kilbourne, along with his brother James, was a founder of the Scioto Company, an organization of one hundred people who immigrated to Ohio in 1803 and settled in a new town that they called Worthington. In 1805, Kilbourne was commissioned a deputy surveyor under Jared Mansfield. He served on the board of trustees of Ohio University and was a commissioner to locate Miami University. In 1812, he was a commissioner appointed by the president to settle the boundary dispute between the United States lands and the Virginian Military Reserve. In 1816, he published Gazetteer of Ohio which was the first attempt to explain the many survey systems employed by the federal government in the Old Northwest Territory.

Introduction

The many methods of government subdivision were so mystifying that veteran civil engineer and surveyor Christopher E. Sherman stated that surveyors rarely ventured outside their small area of work, fearing the monsters that lurked out there. After Peters published Ohio Lands and Their Subdivision in 1917, the book was a mandatory resource for every surveyor and title attorney in the state. Peters’ map of the many survey systems employed in the state was the first since the early 1800s that attempted to explain how the government had subdivided the land. In the early 1920s, Sherman and his assistants discovered Samuel Williams’ plats and notes. There were hundreds of leather bound volumes stacked from floor to ceiling but no index to go with them. After several years with the original notes and plats, Sherman authored, Original Ohio Land Subdivisions, Volume III in 1925. Along with Volume III came a large wall map clearly showing all the different survey systems that were employed in Ohio. The map reportedly took three draftsmen three years to complete and is by far the most outstanding cartographic endeavor ever undertaken in our state. Volume III and the accompanying map became valuable necessities for any surveyor who hoped to work successfully throughout the state of Ohio. Sherman’s Volume III is so complete in its treatment of this material that it is indeed daunting and humbling to attempt to cover the subject once again. However, there are places where even Sherman leaves room to add to the body of knowledge on this subject. This effort then will not try to replace Sherman’s accomplishment but to augment and enliven it.2 With respect to the provenance and presentation of the early survey records, this work stands on the shoulders of Williams, Kilbourne, Peters, and Sherman. An exhaustive reading of period newspapers such as The Centinel of the North-Western Territory and books such as The Executive Journal of the Northwest Territory was completed before commencing to write this book. A visit to Rufus Putnam’s Land Office and to the Point in Marietta was made. The graves of these Revolutionary War heroes at the Mound Cemetery were visited at dusk. The excitement as riverboats came around Kerr’s Island was anticipated. The old streets of Chillicothe were walked and Nathaniel Massie’s and Duncan McArthur’s monuments in Grand View Cemetery were visited. A trip to the banks of the Wabash, which witnessed the screams and gunfire of the battle of St. Clair’s Defeat was made. The point of beginning of the Greenville Treaty Line on the Tuscarawas was visited and also the forks of Loramie’s Creek. Israel Ludlow’s path into Fort Recovery was retraced. The Upper Headquarters camp of Seth Pease on the Cuyahoga River was explored. Part of the Portage Path that was surveyed by Moses Warren was walked. Pickawillany was visited and also Colonel Robert Patterson’s homestead in Dayton. The earthen walls of old Fort Miami which witnessed General Wayne audaciously ride around that fort were scaled. Fort Meigs was visited. The times of the Old Northwest Territory were brought to life as best they could be. The men and women in whose deeds this book would relish were sought out so they could tell their stories in their own words. 2. Christopher Elias Sherman was born on December 28, 1869 in Columbus, Ohio. He was one of twelve children born to Dr. Sylvester M. and Lemira A. Sherman. C.E. Sherman married Eleanor Bruning on June 22, 1897 and the couple was blessed with three sons. C.E. Sherman died May 6, 1949 in Columbus. 3

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

These were campaign-hardened and battle-tested men, many of whom had served with General Washington’s army for seven years under the most arduous conditions. They were frontier-tough. They worked from daylight to dark and slept on the cold ground at night. They ate whatever the hunters shot that day and did not complain. Their likes may never be seen again and it is fitting that their story is told. Their surveys, as they are studied, will speak for these men. It is our charge and our duty as Ohio surveyors and Ohio historians to preserve their survey corners and their memories. To that end, this book has been written. With the original field notes and plats residing at the Ohio Historical Society, now indexed and microfilmed, one can now delve into the subject as deeply as one chooses. There are over one hundred rolls of microfilm in Series 4601, Historical Land Records, Auditor, State of Ohio, Government Records waiting to be viewed. Hundreds of the original volumes and transcribed copies are available as well as Samuel Williams’ plats which were prepared from the originals. The Ohio Company’s Purchase records are safely cared for and indexed at the Dawes Memorial Library, Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio. The Records of The Ohio Company of Associates, The Rufus Putnam Papers, The John Mathews Papers and The Ohio Company surveyors’ field notes and plats can be found in the Slack Research Collections. The New Englanders did a wonderful and thorough job of collecting and indexing their records, notes, and plats. Be prepared to spend many days with this collection. The original notes and plats of The Old Seven Ranges can be found at the US National Archives and Records Administration. Since Hutchins took these notes and plats to New York City, which was the US Capitol at the time, they did not return to Ohio. They did, however, stay with the federal government. These notes and plats were found in Records Group 49, Reel 49, Publication T1234. The records of The Connecticut Western Reserve or New Connecticut reside in the Western Reserve Historical Society in Cleveland. There one can find The Connecticut Land Company Papers, Milt Holley’s Journal, The Joshua Stow Papers, The Abraham Tappen Papers and Seth Pease’s Journal and maps. A large collection of original field notes is recorded on microfilm. It takes several days to see all of this material, so be prepared. This is the report of my twenty-nine years of research in those old volumes, research that started under the tutelage of Dr. R. Ben Buckner at The Ohio State University. I have relied upon original source material in most cases, attempting to provide information not previously discussed by Sherman and Peters. It is my hope that this book opens new vistas on our shared heritage as land surveyors and historians in the state of Ohio and broadens the knowledge of what these men of vision and courage placed upon the land we call Ohio. The next time you fly over Ohio, look down and see their rectangular grids and remember them. They deserve that, as some gave their all for this cause but all gave much.

4

Figure I.1. The Land Act of 1785 was the beginning of the rectangular survey of the Public Domain of the United States. The townships were to be six miles square with thirty-six lots, each one mile square and containing 640 acres. The surveyors were to set a post or mark a tree each mile around a township. It did not direct them to enter a township to mark lot lines. The reserved lots were Nos. 8, 11, and 26, set aside for the federal government for further disposal when land prices increased. Lot 16 was reserved for the purpose of promoting education in each township. Lot 29 was reserved for the promotion of religion in each township. At the last moment before passage, the Continental Congress removed this reservation. The Ohio Company of Associates, however, returned this reservation to their lands. Judge John Cleves Symmes also reserved Lot 29 in his Miami Purchase for the promotion of religion. These reserved lots (sections) 29 became the ‘Ministerial Lands’ in the state of Ohio.

5

Land Act of 1785 An Ordinance for Ascertaining the Mode of Disposal of Lands in the Western Territory—May 20, 1785 The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the War of the Revolution with England. By this treaty, England recognized the sovereignty of the thirteen colonies, saying, “all hostilities were to end and that all British forces were to be evacuated with all convenient speed.”1 England paid little regard to the treaty. General Anthony Wayne and the US Army in 1794 found a well-fortified British fort called Fort Miami at what is now Maumee, Ohio eleven years later. The newly born Congress of the United States was nearly $40 million in debt, mostly to France. The French had provided arms, uniforms, and military equipage to the Colonies. The infant Continental Congress formed under the Articles of Confederation had no power to tax, as taxation had been one of the major causes of the Revolution. The Continental Congress, unable to levy taxes and deeply in debt, concluded the solution to the crisis was to survey and to sell the recently ceded western lands. Congress ratified The Treaty of Paris on January 14, 1784 and then appointed a committee to devise a plan for the subdivision of the frontier. The committee was led by Thomas Jefferson, a surveyor and son of a surveyor. His father Peter Jefferson had surveyed the line between Virginia and North Carolina. Also on this committee was Hugh Williamson of North Carolina, a mathematics professor and an astronomer. Eldridge Gerry of Massachusetts, Jacob Reed of South Carolina, and William Grayson of Virginia completed the committee. After rejecting Jefferson’s plan for using one minute of longitudinal arc (which is about 6086.4 feet and his plan for 100 sections which were called Jefferson One Hundreds) the committee set forth The Ordinance of 1785 which was signed into law on May 20, 1785. The Land Act of 1785, as it came to be called, created the post of Geographer of the United States. The Geographer was to oversee the federal surveyors and regulate their conduct as he deemed necessary. He could also suspend them for misconduct, although only Congress had the full authority to appoint federal surveyors. Thirteen surveyors were to be appointed, one from each state. The Geographer was to direct the work of the surveyors and he was to personally attend to the running of the first East-West line. The Act of 1785 specified, the first line, running due North and South, as foresaid, shall begin on the river Ohio, at a point that shall be found to be due North from the western termination of a line, which has been run as the southern boundary of the State of Pennsylvania; and the first line running East-West shall begin at the same point, and shall extend through the whole territory.2

1. Mark M. Boatner III, Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1966), p. 849. 2. Clarence E. Carter, Territorial Papers of the United States, vol. I (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1934), p. 12. 6

Land Act of 1785

There are two significant points to be made here. The westerly line of the state of Pennsylvania had not been surveyed in May when the Act was written. That line was run between June 6 and August 20, 1785 by the same men who set the southwesterly corner of Pennsylvania during August 1784. These men, representing Virginia and Pennsylvania, were Andrew Ellicott (Virginia), David Rittenhouse (Pennsylvania), Andrew Porter (Pennsylvania), Joseph Neville (Virginia) and James Madison (Virginia). On August 20, 1785 this survey party set a wood post on the north bank of the Ohio River. The second point to be made is that at this time in our country’s history, it was widely believed that Connecticut would cede all its western claims. Therefore, the first surveys would have extended from the Geographer’s Line southerly to the Ohio River and also northerly to Lake Erie. Later in 1785, Connecticut sold its title to the land in the Western Reserve to the Connecticut Land Company, a private company. Although Connecticut later surrendered political jurisdiction to the federal government, the lands of the Western Reserve remained outside the public domain. The Act of 1785 further specified that the surveyors are to use a compass for direction and are to pay due and constant attention to the variation of the magnetic needle and shall run and note all lines by the true meridian, certifying on every plat what was the variation at the time of running the lines thereon noted.3 The surveyors, as they are respectively qualified, shall proceed to divide the territory into townships six miles square, by running lines due North and South, and others crossing these at right angles as near as may be. Each surveyor shall be allowed and paid at the rate of two dollars per mile in length he shall run, including the wages of chain carriers, markers, and every other expense attending the same.4

The surveyors were directed to mark the corners each mile along the boundaries of the townships, but internal lines were to be shown on paper only and not run in the field. The surveyors were to note natural features such as rivers, salt licks, and mill sites. This put the surveyor into the role of explorer and geographer. The lines were to be measured with a sixty-six foot Gunter’s chain, plainly marked with chaps on the trees, and exactly described on the plat. The plats of townships respectively were to be marked by subdivisions of lots one mile square or 640 acres in the same direction as the external lines and were to be numbered from 1 to 36. The townships were to be designated by numbers “progressively from south to north, always beginning each range with the number one.” The Ranges (north-south columns of townships) were to be distinguished by their prospective number westward from the Pennsylvania line. Townships were to be sold whole or in lots, provided that none of these were sold under the price of one dollar per acre. (Sections were originally called lots.) Congressman William Grayson of Virginia argued for passage of the Act of 1785, in opposition to George Washington who favored Virginia’s land system, by stating “the square townships could be surveyed at the least cost since only two sides of each square needed to be measured. The other two, the northerly and the easterly lines having been run previously.”5 3. Carter, Territorial Papers of the United States, vol. I, p. 13. 4. Ibid, p. 13. 5. Grayson to Washington, New York, April 15, 1785 in Burnet, Letters of Members, VIII, pp. 95-96. 7

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

There shall be reserved for the United States out of every township, the four lots numbered 8, 11, 26 & 29 and there shall be reserved the lot No. 16 of every township, for the maintenance of public schools within said township.”6 Done by the United States in Congress assembled, the 20th day of May, in the year of our Lord, 1785, and of our sovereignty and independence, the ninth. Richard H. Lee, President

The Act of 1785 was the beginning of the US Rectangular Survey System, which has been called the greatest surveying project ever undertaken by man on Earth. It included the concept of survey-prior-to-sale which was a new method of land subdivision to colonial Americans. The Public Domain was that land held in trust for the citizens by the US Government and that body had to develop a method to divide the land. There were several glaring defects in the Act of 1785. First, was that no government surveyors ran interior lines of the townships. Therefore, when lots were sold in New York in 1787, there was no interior control for private surveyors to define the lot lines. Several of the first lots sold were very large when laid out on the ground by private surveyors and encompassed much more than 640 acres. The Act of 1785 did not deal with convergence of the meridians. Meridian lines come together as they extend northerly, therefore the townships could not be exactly square. Hutchins knew this and wrote to Congress for further instructions to rectify this contradiction. Congress ignored his letter and did not respond. Hutchins also instructed his surveyors to chain distances horizontally by breaking chain (stair-stepping shorter measurements horizontally up and down steep hills). His instructions seem to have been ignored for the most part. Other than directing that chaps be made on trees at corners, the Act did not define what monuments were to be set. The surveyors developed their own system of marking line trees with two notches and setting wooden posts at corners. Then they located bearing trees to each corner and notched and blazed these trees accordingly. Although the surveyor’s chains were checked before the surveying began in September, no further checks were required and repaired chains were used without being examined against Hutchins’ standard. The payment of two dollars per mile measured was not enough to cover the surveyors’ expenses, let alone their time working and their losses to the Indians. Horses and supplies were often lost at an alarming rate to marauding Indian bands and these losses were absorbed by the surveyors. The Land Act of 1785 was the US Government’s first attempt at creating a system of subdivision for the Public Domain. Its failures were addressed in later years by other land acts. Its successes drove the westward expansion of the United States into the Northwest Territory and beyond. 6. Carter, Territorial Papers of the United States, vol. I, p. 15.

8

Land Act of 1785

Captain Thom as H utchins , G eogr apher

of the

U nited S tates

Thomas Hutchins was born in Monmouth, New Jersey in 1730 and was orphaned as a young man. At age sixteen, he journeyed west to the Ohio River frontier. Hutchins was commissioned to the rank of Ensign in the Second Pennsylvania Regiment on November 1, 1756. In 1757, he was promoted to Quartermaster of the Third Battalion. Two years later, Hutchins applied for and received a commission in the British 60th Royal American Regiment as an Ensign. Later he rose to the rank of Deputy Engineer. While serving under the command of General Henry Bouquet, Hutchins ventured into the Ohio country in 1764 at the conclusion of the French and Indian War. Two years earlier Hutchins had surveyed this same path, known as the Great Trail, from Fort Pitt to Detroit.7 He was a skilled draughtsman and an accomplished cartographer. He mapped the army’s movement from Fort Pitt to the headwaters of the Muskingum River and prepared March of His Majesty’s Troops from Fort Pitt to the Forks of the Muskingum. In this book, Hutchins noted dates, campsites, and exact distances for each day’s march. He also plotted the positions of the Indian towns. At the meeting house near the confluence of the Muskingum River and White Woman’s Creek, the Indians were forced to return the 306 white captives taken during the years of frontier warfare. Later Hutchins charted the Ohio River from Fort Pitt to its falls near present day Louisville, Kentucky. This survey was conducted from the bow of a boat.8 When the Revolutionary War with England began, Hutchins, then a Captain in the British army was in London.9 He was supervising the printing of his book and map entitled, A Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina. The British offered Hutchins the rank of Major but he refused to take up arms against his American countrymen.10 He was imprisoned in Clerkenwell Prison for high treason. “He was loaded with irons and put among felons and treated with every kind of severity and insult, and forbidden to see or write his friends.”11 He had his savings of about $20,000 confiscated as a fine. He somehow escaped prison (several historians think that a brother Mason released him) and made his way to France. In Paris, he met Benjamin Franklin. On March 16, 1780, Hutchins swore his allegiance to the American cause.12 Franklin wrote a glowing letter of recommendation for Hutchins to the Continental Congress. In 1781, Hutchins 7. Thomas Hutchins Papers, The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Box 3, Folder 12, “The Route from Fort Pitt to Sandusky and thence to Detroit.” 8. Hutchins’ Papers, Box 3, Folder 27, “Map and Description of the Ohio River from Pittsburg down.” Beverly Bond jr., The Courses of the Ohio River taken by Lt. T. Hutchins, Anno 1776 and Two Accompanying Maps, Cincinnati: 1942. 9. Hutchins’ Papers, Hutchins’ commission from King George III dated Sept. 24, 1775 can be found in Box 1, Folder 1. 10. Hutchins had spent twenty years in the British army, fifteen years as an engineer and thus deserved the rank of Major. 11. The Works of Benjamin Franklin, vol. VIII (Boston: Tappen & Whittemore, 1839), Hutchins Memorial from Benjamin Franklin to Congress, March 16, 1780, p. 436. 12. Anna Margaret Quattrocchi, Thomas Hutchins, 1730-1789, University of Pittsburgh, 1944.

9

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

Figure I.2. The following two pages contain a reproduction of the Ohio portion of the Thomas Hutchins’ map entitled ‘’A new map of the western parts of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina, comprehending the river Ohio, and all the rivers, which fall into it; part of the river Mississippi, the whole of the Illinois river, Lake Erie; part of Lakes Huron, Michigan & the whole country bordering on these lakes and rivers.” Hutchins was in London in 1776 seeing to the production of this map and the accompanying manuscript when the shooting war broke out in the Colonies. When he refused to take up arms against his fellow countrymen, Hutchins was imprisoned and thrown into Clerkenwell Prison. His personal assets were confiscated and his finances seized by the British government. It is believed that a brother Mason secured Hutchins’ escape from England. Hutchins fled to France where he met Benjamin Franklin who wrote a letter of recommendation to the Continental Congress. Hutchins’ map was engraved by T. Cheevers in London in 1778 without his assistance. Hutchins collected much of the information on this map from his expeditions down the Ohio River to the Mississippi River, from Fort Pitt to Fort Detroit, and with Colonel Henry Bouquet from Fort Pitt to the forks of the Muskingum River in 1764. Hutchins was a topographical engineer in the British army during the French and Indian War. Some information shown on this map appears to be from John Mitchell’s map of 1755. Hutchins was weak on the area around the confluence of the St. Mary’s and the St. Joseph’s Rivers, as well as the southerly tip of Lake Michigan. Hutchins placed the southerly tip of Lake Michigan at about the 42nd degree of north latitude much as Mitchell and Evans had done on their maps. This inaccuracy later led to the Ohio/ Michigan conflict in the 1830s. This Hutchins’ map was used by the State of Virginia to describe the northerly line of the Virginia Military Reserve in 1784. The line from the origin of the Little Miami to the origin of the Scioto appears to be an easterly line across the Indian path. This error by Hutchins resulted in a great conflict between Virginia and the federal government in later years. Judge John C. Symmes used this map to plot his Miami Purchase of 1,000,000 acres in 1788 between the Miami Rivers. Symmes was later surprised to find the two rivers were much closer than Hutchins had shown on his map. The Ohio Company of Associates in 1790 constructed the beginnings of the town of Gallipolis based upon where Hutchins showed the mouth of the Great Kanawha River. Hutchins was about twelve miles in error in this matter and the French emigrants ended up on Ohio Company lands, much to their regret. General Josiah Harmar used this map in his ill-fated campaign against the Miami Indians in 1790. Harmar found that he was fifteen miles further from the Indians than the map showed. General Arthur St. Clair used this map for his Indian campaign of 1791. His miscalculations resulted in the utter destruction of the U. S. Army on the banks of the Wabash. Surveyor General Rufus Putnam used this Hutchins’ map to produce the first map of Ohio in 1803, which led Putnam to place Fort Wayne inside the western boundary of the new state. There are men who make maps and influence history but . . . 

10

11

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

was appointed Geographer to the Southern Army. Simeon DeWitt served General Washington as Geographer of the Army. With the Land Act of 1785 debated and finalized on May 20th, Hutchins was appointed Geographer of the United States. On May 27, 1785 Hutchins received his commission for a term of three years. He made his way westerly from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh, a distance of 322 miles by the Pennsylvania Road, arriving in early September. Pittsburgh at that time was a small community of about eighty log buildings and Fort Pitt.13 Hutchins ventured westerly on the Ohio River to Fort McIntosh and met with Colonel Josiah Harmar, commander of US forces on the frontier.14 Harmar assured him that the Indians, who had recently signed the Treaty of Fort McIntosh, would present no threat to the surveyors’ safety in the planned survey of the Northwestern Territory. On September 30, 1785 Hutchins and his eight state-appointed “Gentleman Surveyors” began the rectangular survey of the Public Domain of the United States. Five states did not send a surveyor to the Northwest Territory that year. Hutchins with his sextant observed the sun at sunrise. He calculated his position on the north bank of the Ohio River at its intersection with the westerly line of the state of Pennsylvania as 40 degrees 38 minutes 02 seconds North.15 Hutchins was instructed to personally run the East-West line himself. This line became known as the Geographers Line in his honor. Hutchins had surveyed westerly about forty-nine miles and was working on the Ninth Range when news of Indian threats stopped the surveying for the year 1786.16 In June 1787, Hutchins accepted a commission to survey the boundary between the state of New York and the state of Massachusetts. He was accompanied by two noted mathematicians David Rittenhouse, with whom Hutchins had worked on the survey of the westerly line of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Thomas Ewing. Hutchins submitted plats of the townships of Ranges Five, Six, and Seven to the Board of the Treasury in June 1788.17 Finally, Hutchins and the Board arrived at a settlement for the money owed him for his work during the years of 1785, 1786, and 1787.18 However, it took an order from Congress to force the Department of the Treasury to pay him. During July 1788 Hutchins, back in his role as Geographer, returned to the Northwest Territory to oversee the survey of the boundary of the Ohio Company’s Purchase of 1,500,000 acres. This time he had an escort of fifty-four soldiers to protect him and his surveyors. Military protection was something Hutchins had sought from the army since 1785. 13. In journals, diaries and maps on the time, Pittsburg is spelled without the letter “h” but is correct with the “h.” 14. Fort McIntosh was located on the north bank of the Ohio River and west of Big Beaver River, near today’s Beaver, Pennsylvania. 15. Hutchins’ Papers, Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Collection No. 308), “Journal of a survey of Government lands on the North side of the Ohio River,” 1785-1786, Box 2, Folder 38. 16. Jacob Springer brought news of a large Shawnee war party of about four hundred warriors gathered on the Scioto River with the intent of attacking the surveyors. 17. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. LXIV (Boston: 1910) p. 368. 18. Hutchins’ Papers, “William Duer to Hutchins,” October 4, 1787, Box 3, Folder 12; “Henry Knox to Hutchins,” December 15, 1787, Box 3, Folder 17. 12

Land Act of 1785

Hutchins assigned the survey to Israel Ludlow and Absalom Martin, as his health was declining rapidly. Ludlow was assigned the survey of the meanders of the Ohio River from the southern-most point of the Seven Ranges to the mouth of the Scioto River. Martin started the survey up the Scioto for about ten miles. This was deep into Indian country and Martin wanted no part of it. Ludlow completed the survey eighty miles up the river that Hutchins had assigned the pair. Ludlow seemed not to worry much about the Indians, as evidenced by his volunteering for the Seventh Range survey when none of the other surveyors wanted to survey that far west into hostile Indian land. Thomas Hutchins died April 28, 1789 in Pittsburgh after an illness of several months characterized by a failing of the nerves and an almost insensible waste of his constitution. Doctors of the time referred to this illness as the fevers. This illness would also claim the life of Israel Ludlow just fifteen years later. Hutchins was fifty-nine years old and the years of sleeping on the cold wet ground, the swarms of hungry insects, and the hard life on the frontier had taken their toll. Thomas Hutchins was buried in the First Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Pittsburgh. No other Geographer of the United States was ever appointed.

RESEARCH NOTES Hutchins’ maps can be found in The Library of Congress, The National Archives, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania and the Ohio Historical Society. A biography of Thomas Hutchins was written by Anna Margaret Quattrocchi as her Ph.D. dissertation at the Department of History, University of Pittsburgh in 1944. It is entitled, Thomas Hutchins, 1730-1789. Hutchins’ map of the west, entitled, “A New Map of the Western Part of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina” and an extended biographical note may be found in Thomas Hutchins, A Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina. Frederick C. Hicks, ed. (Cleveland: The Burrows Brothers Company, 1904). This Hutchins’ map was relied upon by President George Washington, President Thomas Jefferson, General Rufus Putnam, and Arthur Lee. Others who later used Hutchins’ map were Andrew Ellicott, General Arthur St. Clair, General Josiah Harmar, Judge John Cleves Symmes, and the Commonwealth of Virginia. Thomas Hutchins’ letters to the Continental Congress can be found in Ohio in the Time of the Confederation by Archer Butler Hulbert, published by the Marietta Historical Commission, Marietta, Ohio, 1918, pages 144-187. This book was part three of the Records of the Ohio Company. The Thomas Hutchins Papers are preserved by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Collection No. 308). Along with his many surveys of Fort Pitt and western Pennsylvania and the Territory northwest of the Ohio River, this collection also contains: “Description of the sea coast, harbors, lakes, rivers, etc. of the Province of Florida,” “Observations of the Mississippi River,” “Maps of the North Carolina mountains,” “ Distances from the Illinois River,” and “Drawing of the Fox River, Wisconsin.” There also are Hutchins’ notes on his celestial observations. Box 1, Folder 40 contains his “Astronomical Observations May 6th, 1766.” Box 1, Folder 50 contains his “Observations of eclipses of Jupiter’s satellites.” Box 2, Folder 16 contains “Astronomical Observations of Ewing, Hutchins, Madison and Ellicott.”

13

Figure I.3

14

Figure I.4. The easterly line of the state of Ohio is an extension of the famous Mason-Dixon line of 1763–68. Commissioners from Virginia and Pennsylvania extended that line westerly to the southwest corner of Pennsylvania in November 1784. The next year the line was surveyed northerly until reaching the north bank of the Ohio River, where a post was set by Andrew Ellicott, David Rittenhouse, and Andrew Porter. On September 30, 1785, Thomas Hutchins, as Geographer of the United States, began the U.S. Rectangular Survey at that post.

15

16

Figure I.5

Chapter One: The Old Seven Ranges Into the Wilderness with Thomas Hutchins and his Gentlemen Surveyors The morning of September 30, 1785 dawned cool and crisp as the dew and fog lifted from the Ohio River. The rising morning sun outlined the figures of the thirty-nine men unloading equipment from their boats in preparation for the day’s work. It was an exciting time and all those present knew of the great importance of what they were about to undertake. The Geographer of the United States, Thomas Hutchins, was there and so were eight state-appointed surveyors along with thirty other assistants. The very first chain was about to be dropped on the land of the Northwest Territory and the Federal Rectangular Survey was about to begin. Hutchins was directed to run the east-west line astronomically.1 Every six miles, a state-appointed surveyor was to run a line southerly to the Ohio River, called Range Lines.2 The surveyors were to mark a tree every mile on these lines and every six miles would be a township corner. The townships would be numbered northerly from the Ohio River as it meandered its way to the Mississippi River. The axe-men were brought forward immediately as the forest was very dense. Hutchins set up his sextant and the Gunter’s chains were thrown, ready to measure the land.3 As the work began, hunters ventured into the forest to shoot game for the evening meal. The horse handlers tended to their pack animals and scouts watched the horizon for signs of Indians. All were apprehensive of an attack by the Indians as they ventured further into the wilderness. Soon the rear chainman bellowed “chain” every sixty-six feet and the head chainman marked the point with a chaining pin. The surveyor’s magnetic compass was directing these men into history as they pressed westerly. Due to the rugged topography and the thick virgin forest, very little progress was made the first day and the men returned to camp near the Little Beaver Creek that night. Over dinner of venison stew, the talk was of the size and density of the trees and the evidence of Indian trails. Sleep was uneasy during the night as wolves and panthers howled. Every sound could have been that of marauding Indians. The next morning the men were awakened by rain. Their blankets were soaked, the ground was muddy, and the firewood with which to cook breakfast was wet. The morning meal consisted only of dried salt pork and coffee. After a few bites, the chains were once again dropped and the work day commenced. 1. Albert C. Gallatin, Introduction to Laws, Treaties and other Documents having operation and respect to the Public Lands (Washington City: Roger C. Weightman, 1811), p. 130. 2. Ibid., p. 130. “The geographer shall designate the townships or fractional parts of townships, by numbers progressively from south to north; always beginning each range with No. 1; and the ranges shall be distinguished by their progressive numbers to the westward. The first range extending from the Ohio to Lake Erie, being marked No. 1.” 3. Edmund Gunter (1581–1626), Welsh, Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy, Gresham College, London, developed the Gunter’s Chain, which was sixty-six feet long and made up of one hundred links. One mile equals eighty chains. One acre equals ten square chains. A ten chain square equals ten acres. 17

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones S urv ey

of the

S ev en R anges , 1785

The Old Seven Ranges were surveyed into six mile square townships. The basic subdivision was the one mile square section, referred to as a lot in 1785. A township was comprised of thirty-six lots. The townships were numbered northerly from the Ohio River and the ranges were numbered westerly from the Pennsylvania line. In the autumn of 1785, the survey of the Pennsylvania line was not completed northerly from the Ohio to Lake Erie. Consequently, only those townships south of the Geographer’s Line were measured and marked. Captain Thomas Hutchins led his “Gentlemen Surveyors,” as he called them, to the Ohio River on September 22, 1785. They camped on the north bank of the river near Little Beaver Creek. There they waited for Indian guides to arrive, whom Hutchins thought would protect them from roving bands of Indians. No special instruments were provided by the United States for the beginning of the public land surveys.4 During this first week Hutchins made observations of the sun and the North Star and determined the latitude of the camp to be 40 degrees 37 minutes 47 seconds North. He determined the variation of the magnetic needle to be 0 degrees 54 minutes East of North. The surveyor’s chains were checked against Hutchins’ chain to ensure precision in their work. The surveyor’s compasses were also checked for agreement with Hutchins’ compass. The Indian guides from the Delaware and Wyandot tribes never appeared. Without these guides, Hutchins and his surveyors were apprehensive about going forward into the wilderness. On September 30, 1785 Hutchins made the first observation on the post set on the north bank of the River Ohio by Rittenhouse and Ellicott a month earlier. Hutchins, accustomed to measuring latitude by shooting the sun with his sextant, reckoned the point of beginning to be 40 degrees 38 minutes 02 seconds North. No other astronomical measurements were recorded for the East-West Line. Captain Absalom Martin, who accompanied Hutchins, wrote that the highest degree of care was taken in running the line westerly. This apparently was done by the magnetic needle and corrected for variation.5 With Hutchins that morning were eight state-appointed surveyors. From the state of Massachusetts came General Benjamin Tupper. As Lieutenant Colonel of the 2nd Massachusetts Regiment, he fought against British General John Burgoyne at the Battle of Saratoga. He commanded his regiment skillfully during the Monmouth Campaign and worked on the defenses at West Point on the Hudson. Later in the war, he served on the western frontier and was brevetted to the rank of Brigadier General on September 30, 1783. 4. Henry F. G. Waters, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. LXIV (Boston: New England Genealogical Society, 1910), p. 362n. 5. Albion M. Dyer, First Ownership of Ohio Lands (Boston: The New England Historical and Genealogical Society, Volumes LXIV and LXV, 1911), p.365.

18

Figure 1-1

19

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

William W. Morris was sent by the state of New York. Lieutenant Morris was a gifted mathematician and was the only man equal to Hutchins in ability for astronomical surveying. Martin attributed much of the work on the Geographer’s Line to Morris. After Hutchins’ death, Morris’ application for the position of Geographer of the United States was rejected for reasons unknown. New Jersey sent Captain Absalom Martin of Somerset County.6 Martin, a Princeton College graduate, proved to be indefatigable in his work for Hutchins. He finished his First Range and then completed the Second Range when Colonel Adam Hoops became ill. Connecticut sent Lieutenant Colonel Isaac Sherman, son of the well-known surveyor Roger Sherman a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Isaac Sherman, an accomplished surveyor, retired from the Continental Army and scouted land in the Northwest Territory for the Governor of Connecticut. Edward Dowse, an obscure surveyor from the state of New York, was sent from New Hampshire after Nathaniel Adams and Ebenezer Sullivan, both prominent surveyors in New Hampshire, declined their state’s appointment. The Commonwealth of Virginia sent Captain Alexander Parker, a veteran of General Washington’s army from 1775 to 1783. He served in command of a company in the Second Virginia Regiment. Captain Parker was captured by the British at Charleston, South Carolina in May 1780, but was able to escape. After the war, he became the County Surveyor of Westmoreland County. He was a country surveyor and an adept frontiersman who knew how to survive in the wilderness.7 Maryland sent James Simpson, a country surveyor who was from York County, Pennsylvania. No Maryland surveyors wanted to venture westerly into hostile Indian country. Georgia sent Dr. Robert Johnson who was actually from Baltimore, Maryland. Johnson was a man of means and later purchased about 18 square miles of land in the Seven Ranges. He was not a surveyor. Thomas Hutchins’ notes begin:8 6 chains 60 links—a brook running south 20 deg. west. 21 chains 00 links—crossed a ridge. 22 chains 37 links—the land is extraordinary good—timber is locust, black Walnut, hickory and elm.

6. Louise Martin Mohler, The Martin Family of America (Washington, PA, L.M. Mohler, 1983) Absalom Martin born in 1758 was the son of Colonel Ephraim and Martha Martin. He fought in the 4th Battalion of the 2nd New Jersey of the Continental Line. He was appointed to the rank of captain in the 1st New Jersey Regiment in 1783. He was an original member of the Order of Cincinnati. In 1789, Martin married Catherine Zane, daughter of Colonel Ebenezer and Elizabeth McColloch Zane in Wheeling, Virginia. In 1790, US Land Warrant #1408 was issued to Absalom Martin for 300 acres for his service in the military. Martin selected land on the west bank of the Ohio just north of Wheeling. He laid out the town of Jefferson which later became Martin’s Ferry. Absalom Martin surveyed the French Grant of 24,000 acres on the Ohio River for Surveyor General Putnam in 1796. Captain Martin died at age 44 and was buried in Walnut Grove Cemetery in Martin’s Ferry. 7. Captain Alexander Parker was patented 5333.3 acres of land in the Virginia Military District for his services during the war. In 1799, Parker laid out the town of Alexandria on the west side of the Scioto River and the north bank of the Ohio. This town served as the original county seat of Scioto County. 8. Papers of the Continental Congress, (Library of Congress) vol. 60, pp. 193–199.

20

Chapter One: The Old Seven Ranges 33 chains 14 links—high land. 46 chains 80 links—west of this point-lands disposed for the growth of vines. Variety of trees and bushes. The whole of the above described land is too rich to produce wheat but is well adapted for Indian corn, tobacco, hemp, flax, oats, etc.

Hutchins wrote favorably of the land that he traversed those first few days. From the beginning, the surveying was difficult and slow. The land was cut by deep ravines with very steep sides. Hutchins had instructed his chain carriers to break chain and measure horizontally, which meant that they could only measure a few feet at a time. On October 8, reports of increased Indian activity heightened fears among the surveyors and the entire party retreated to their camp on Little Beaver Creek. On October 15 runners delivered messages from the regional chiefs demanding that the surveying be stopped.9 Also, the news of a massacre at Tuscarawas, about fifty miles west of Hutchins and his surveyors, brought apprehension and fear to all involved.10 When rumors reached Hutchins that squatters on the federal side of the Ohio River might join with the Indians and attack the surveyors, Hutchins called off any further work that year. The first season of federal surveying was thus concluded. Only three miles, sixty-six chains, and seventy-eight links had been measured and marked. The eight state-appointed surveyors returned home with nothing to show for their work but debts. Not one surveyor had measured his first mile, for which they were to be paid $2.00 per mile. But they had paid their chain carriers, markers, hunters, horse handlers, and axe men as well as provided provisions for the whole party. Hutchins traveled to New York and on November 25 transmitted to Congress “a plan and Remarks of that part of the Western Territory through which an East and West Line has been run, agreeable to an Ordinance of Congress of the 20th of May last. The plan was copied from the original by Mr. William Morris, surveyor appointed by Congress from the State of New York, to whom I am much indebted for his work on the east and west line.”11 Hutchins made glowing reports of the land to Congress. Perhaps this was an attempt to cover his lack of progress made on the survey that season.

The S urv eys

of

1786

On May 9, 1786 Congress passed a resolution which gave Hutchins a vote of confidence and authorized the Geographer to again go into the wilderness. The resolution further specified: “the surveyors do not proceed further northerly than the east and west line,” and repealed the clause of the previous year that required the surveyors “to pay the utmost attention to 9. Captain Pipe for the Delawares and Wyandots at Upper Sandusky, October 5, 1785, “Captain Hutchins and Brothers who sit at the thirteen fires . . . do desist from prosecuting the surveying business until the treaty to be held at the big Miami river.” Papers of the Continental Congress, No. 60, p. 209. 10. Silas Zane and a party of thirteen were attacked by the Indians on Wapatomika Creek at the headwaters of the Muskingum River in the fall of 1785. Zane, the older brother of Colonel Ebenezer Zane, was killed. 11. The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. LXIV p. 363.

21

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

the variation of the magnetic needle and to run and note all lines by the true meridian.”12 Now the meridians could be run by the magnetic needle and not corrected for variation. Hutchins’ hopes for the new season were buoyed by the construction of Fort Harmar at the mouth of the Muskingum River. This fort was the most advanced post on the frontier. Hutchins intended to survey thirteen ranges before the season ended. To ensure an Indian escort, Hutchins sent messages to the Delaware and Wyandot tribes early in the spring and expected them to appear at his camp as promised. When Hutchins returned to Pittsburgh on June 25, 1786, he had high hopes for the surveying season. He saw his problems as the lack of money from the Congress, the constant threat of the Indians, no plan to deal with convergence of the meridians, and the great difficulty of acquiring sufficient amounts of supplies. Hutchins had written Congress with regard to convergence of the meridians.13 Nathan Dane of Massachusetts moved to abandon adherence to north-south and east-west lines. Congress defeated his motion and convergence was not dealt with for this season. Congress did, however, give Hutchins the power to appoint surveyors for the states which failed to do so themselves. The number one problem for the surveyors was that they could not pay their helpers and make any money at the rate of $2.00 per mile measured. Hutchins asked Congress to increase the rate to $3.00 per mile. Congress denied this request and the pay stayed the same as the year before. The Indian threat was somewhat alleviated by the US Army taking an active role for the 1786 season. Lieutenant Colonel Josiah Harmar, commanding at Fort McIntosh, sent three companies of infantry under Major John F. Hamtramck to the area where Hutchins and his surveyors planned to work.14 These soldiers had orders to drive out squatters who were on federal land illegally. On August 8 Major Hamtramck and one hundred and fifty soldiers arrived at the surveyor’s camp on the Little Beaver Creek. This detachment had no supplies and did not receive any from Pittsburgh until the middle of that month.15 The state surveyors who reported for the 1786 surveying season were returnees: Captain Absalom Martin from New Jersey, Lieutenant William W. Morris from New York, Colonel 12. Gallatin, Introduction to Laws, Treaties and Other Documents having operation and respect to the Public Lands, Resolved 12th May, 1786 “Resolved that the above recited clause in said ordinance be, and the same hereby is repealed.” p. 134. 13. Frederick Charles Hicks, A Topographical Description of Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland and North Carolina (Cleveland: Burrows Brother Company, 1904), p. 42, Hutchins wrote to the President of Congress from Pittsburgh “By the Ordinance of Congress I am commanded to lay off each Township six miles square, by lines running due North & South, and then others crossing these at right angles as near as may be; Permit me to observe that as we approach the Pole the meridians have a gradual inclination towards each other until they terminate at a Point, therefore six miles square cannot be comprehended within the Meridians, and it will be impossible for each Township to contain 23,040 acres as intended by Congress without adding in Latitude what may be wanting in Longitude.” 14. Fort McIntosh was constructed in 1778 under the command of General Lachlan McIntosh. It occupied a commanding plateau on the west side of the mouth of the Big Beaver River. It was twenty-six miles from Fort Pitt to Fort McIntosh. Beaver, Pennsylvania was built on the site of this old fort. 15. Fort Pitt was garrisoned by twenty-five soldiers commanded by Lt. Luckett that year. Pittsburgh consisted of about one hundred houses and businesses. 22

Chapter One: The Old Seven Ranges

Isaac Sherman from Connecticut, General Benjamin Tupper from Massachusetts, Dr. Robert Johnson from Georgia, and James Simpson from Maryland. Captain Alexander Parker of Virginia was replaced by Charles Smith and Edward Dowse of New Hampshire was replaced by Major Winthrop Sargent. Sargent was from Massachusetts and was scouting land for the Ohio Company of Associates, a Massachusetts organization of ex-officers who sought land in the Northwest Territory as payment for their services from 1776 to 1783. New for this season of surveying were Colonel Ebenezer Sproat from Rhode Island, an experienced surveyor who was to help in the founding of Marietta two years later; Colonel Adam Hoops from Pennsylvania, was a surveyor, land speculator, and a personal friend of Hutchins; Samuel Montgomery from North Carolina; and Israel Ludlow who represented South Carolina even though he was from New Jersey. Ludlow replaced William Tate of South Carolina who failed to come west in 1785 and 1786. Even though Ludlow was just twenty-one years old, he was college educated and an experienced surveyor. Hutchins traveled with twelve state-appointed surveyors and one hundred and fifty soldiers and scores of helpers who had been hired as chainmen, markers, hunters, and cooks from Pittsburgh. He was the leader of a small town called the surveyors’ camp. Sargent had hired two chainmen, a marker, a horse handler, two axe-men, a hunter, and a cook. He also rented nine horses. On top of this he had to buy supplies for the men and the horses. He invested $250 while in Pittsburgh in preparation of the planned surveying.16 Well aware of the hardships faced by the veterans of Washington’s army, Secretary of War Henry Knox personally recommended Major Sargent to Hutchins. Knox knew of Sargent’s association with the Ohio Company and wanted to help these veterans quickly attain land in the Northwest Territory. Sargent, sensing that Hutchins would not need him for a while, asked the Geographer for a short leave to go down the Ohio River to the mouth of the Muskingum River and Fort Harmar to scout for prospective land. Meanwhile, Hutchins, along with Absalom Martin, made his way to the fourth mile post on August 9. On August 10, they reached a distance of six miles and set the corner post. Martin, who had drawn Range I, measured south to the Ohio River. Captain Hutchins returned to the surveyors’ camp and summoned Colonel Adam Hoops who had drawn Range II. Hoops, along with his assistants and soldiers, then chained west with Hutchins until they reached a distance of twelve miles from the point of beginning. After setting that post, Hoops headed southerly with his party of men. Hutchins returned to the surveyor’s camp and to get Colonel Isaac Sherman, who had drawn Range III. With Sherman and his party were thirty soldiers assigned for protection. Range IV was the domain of Colonel Ebenezer Sproat of Rhode Island. Hutchins and Sproat set the twenty-four mile post on September 2 and Colonel Sproat chained southerly to the Ohio River. 16. The Diary of Winthrop Sargent, Sargent Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society, Boston, Massachusetts.

23

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

About this time, Sargent returned to the surveyors’ camp and made his way west to meet Hutchins. Sargent had drawn the Fifth Range. The swamps and thickets took their toll on Sargent. At the end of the first day with Hutchins, Sargent wrote, “I find this business of surveying with the few hands I have, in a supreme degree fatiguing.”17 The next day was worse as the forest was even more entangled. On September 6, Hutchins and Sargent set the thirty mile post and Sargent and his men chained southerly toward the Ohio River. With Sargent was young New England school teacher John Mathews. Mathews was the nephew of General Rufus Putnam and had started Range II with Hoops. When Hoops became ill and left the field on September 1, Mathews and his friend Anselm Tupper, the son of General Benjamin Tupper, volunteered to help on the Fifth Range. For the next four days the party of six surveyors and two soldiers was without meat as the hunter was not able to provide any fresh game. This was not unusual. Those old smooth bore muskets were not very accurate. Despite having two hunters with them, Hutchins and James Simpson of Maryland running the northerly line of the Sixth Range went without fresh meat for five days. The miring swamps and the rugged terrain took their toll on Hutchins. He seemed to give up on his plan to survey thirteen ranges in 1786. He had hoped to survey one range for each of the thirteen states. Only the state of Delaware was not represented in the survey party. As Sargent measured southerly, he had no idea what the township numbers would be until he reached the Ohio River and then began numbering northerly. He should have known what lot number he was working on though, as all townships were numbered the same with one in the southeast corner and thirty-six in the northwest corner. To evaluate Sargent’s work, consider Martin’s notes on Range I. Martin working with Hutchins records: Beginning at a post in the West Boundary Line of the State of Pennsylvania and the North bank of the Ohio River, thence surveyed West on the North side of Section 6, T. 5, R. I 2.85 chains  a white walnut 18 inches in dia. notched, blazed on south side 20.55  a sugar 12 inches in dia. notched on E. & W. sides 46.86  an elm 12 inches in dia. notched on E. & W. sides 51.59  a white oak 12 inches in dia. notched on E. & W. sides 74.22  a white oak 9 inches in dia. notched on E. & W. sides 80.00  Set a post, corner to Sec. 6 and Sec. 12, from which an elm 8 inches in dia. bears N 37 W, 6 links and a red oak 30 inches in dia. Bears S45 E, 18 links distant. The oak is blazed on the North side and the Elm on the South side.

Martin continued on with Hutchins until he came to his sixth mile: West  on the North side of Section 36, T. 5, R. 1 28.02 chains  a black oak 12 inches in dia.  2 notches on E. & W. sides 35.11  a white oak 9 inches in dia.  2 notches on E. & W. sides 40.34  a white oak 12 inches in dia.  2 notches on E. & W. sides 50.94  a red oak 42 inches in dia.  2 notches on E. & W. sides 75.08  a white oak 10 inches in dia.  2 notches on E. & W. sides 80.00  Set a post for the North West corner of this Township from which a black oak 15 inches in dia. bears N84E, 12 links & a white oak 12 inches in dia. bears N34W, 42 links distant—marked with 6 notches and a blaze.

17. Sargent Diary, entry for September 3, 1786.

24

Figure 1-2

25

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

Martin then turned southerly toward the Ohio River. He measured one mile and 44.69 chains on the west lines of Section 36 and then Section 35. At 44.69 chains he reached the bank of the Ohio River and set a post. He referenced the bearing trees and then measured the meanders of the Ohio northeasterly to his point of beginning and calculated the acreage. See map of Township 5, Range I. Major Sargent in his haste to cover as many miles as possible (remember the surveyors are being paid by the number of miles measured) recorded in his notes: First Mile—North side of Section 29.22 chains  a white oak 13 inches in dia. 50.37  a white oak 22 inches in dia. 55.22  a white oak 6 inches in dia. 63.30  a white oak 18 inches in dia. 80.00  Set a post, corner to Sections from which a white oak 18 inches in dia. bears N64W, 12 links & a white oak 12 inches in dia. bears S13W, 36.5 links distant.18

Sargent’s notes go on not indicating what section or lot he was working on and do not give any markings such as notches or blazes on trees or posts. Sargent further infuriated Hutchins by not running the southerly lines of most of his townships. The surveyors in this system had only to run two sides of each square. The surveyor, in this case Sargent, would run the westerly line southerly until reaching the southwest corner of the township. Then he would survey easterly to the southeast corner of said township, hoping to be somewhat near Sproat’s southwest corner from the Fourth Range. Then the whole surveying party had to walk six miles back to Sargent’s southwest corner without pay, where they would start the whole process over again. This was dead time and Sargent sought to avoid this as much as he could. Thus he ran only two southerly lines, on the first township southerly and the seventh township southerly which was his last. John Mathews, who was with Sargent’s party, recorded in his diary, “several days of steady rain, dense swamps, thick underbrush and forests of virgin timber made advancement of the chain very slow. In some places it was necessary to cut a path every foot of the way. Progress on the Fifth Range was about two miles per day.” 19 Mathews wrote that at night the screaming of panthers and wolves made sleeping very difficult. Rumors reached Sargent that Hutchins was considering not accepting his work, which infuriated Sargent. Then a messenger reached Sargent’s camp telling of two large bands of Indians, mostly Cherokees and Mingos, who had scalped eleven settlers, some were still alive.20 The Indians then burned a mother and her daughter at the stake.21 Providing further terror was the news that hundreds of Shawnees were gathering on the Scioto River to attack the surveyors.22 Hutchins’ surveyors were greatly exposed to danger. Major Ham18. “Records of Field Notes, Old Seven Ranges”, Range V, Winthrop Sargent, Series 4601, State Auditors Records, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio. 19. John Mathews’ Journal, Dawes Memorial Library, Special Collections, Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio. 20.41 New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. V, p. 64. 21. Letter from Captain William Ferguson to Colonel Josiah Harmar dated September 14th, 1786, Josiah Harmar Papers, Manuscript Division, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan. 22. New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. V, p. 360, “Nearly five hundred warriors were assembled on the west bank of the Scioto ready to move.” 26

Figure 1-3

27

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

tramck and most of his battalion were almost sixty miles from Sargent’s camp and were not well equipped to defend the surveyors. On September 18 Hutchins was working on the Ninth Range when he was delivered alarming news by Jacob Springer. Springer was the messenger whom Hutchins had sent to the Delaware and Wyandot tribes in the early spring. Hutchins and General Tupper, who had drawn the Eighth Range, ordered a full retreat to the Virginia side of the Ohio River. They met Lieutenant William Morris and his party on the Seventh Range. Morris had drawn the Seventh and had surveyed one and one half miles southerly from the East-West Line. Both parties traveled together and met with James Simpson on the Sixth Range. A large full-scale flight ensued to the Virginia side of the Ohio River.23 Hutchins could not find Sargent on the Fifth Range and went on without him. Sargent took his time in retreating to the surveyors’ camp on the Little Beaver. Sproat and Sherman, on the Fourth and Third Ranges, had already returned to the surveyors’ camp for supplies and were safe. Martin had finished Hoops’ Second Range and was also at the surveyors’ camp. Sargent arrived at the surveyors’ camp on September 28 and found the camp in turmoil, gripped by fear of an impending attack.24 About this time, Colonel Benjamin Logan and Colonel Robert Patterson of Kentucky with a force of seven hundred militia solders struck the Shawnee camps. The attack dispersed the assembled Shawnee force and most likely saved the federal surveyors. Colonel Logan and Captain Hutchins did not know of this coincidence. Hutchins and his surveyors crossed the Ohio River and gathered at William McMahon’s house in Virginia. McMahon was a local magistrate and his house on the east bank of the Ohio River was part of a fortified community known as Cox’s Fort. This fort was one of four fortified positions on the Virginia side of the Ohio River. Further down the river was Fort Henry and Wheeling which had been founded in 1769 by Ebenezer, Silas, and Jonathan Zane. Up the river was William Greathouse’s house. Above that place was Charles Wells’ fortified settlement. All these houses provided safety and support to Hutchins and his surveyors at one time or another as well as food for the men and forage for their horses. The Zane brothers operated a ferry across the Ohio River at Wheeling and later opened the road across Ohio known as Zane’s Trace. This road extended from Wheeling, Virginia to Limestone (Maysville), Kentucky. By mid-October Hutchins sent Absalom Martin, Isaac Sherman, and Ebenezer Sproat, each with a guard of twenty soldiers, back into the field. On October 10 Winthrop Sargent and his surveying party returned to the Fifth Range. His protection included Captain Jonathan Heart and twenty-five soldiers.25 From October 15 to October 31 they progressed 23. Papers of the Continental Congress No. 41, vol. VI, p. 301. 24. Sargent Diary, entry for September 28, 1786, 25. Captain Jonathan Heart was killed at the Battle on the Wabash (St. Clair’s Defeat) November 4, 1791. Heart, mounted on a majestic white horse, led a courageous counter-attack to save the Captain William Ferguson’s big guns and was shot almost instantly by several Indians.

28

Figure 1-4

29

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

two miles per day. Sargent blamed the soldiers for slowing down the surveying work. On October 30 during a severe thunderstorm, Indians stole eight of Sargent’s nine horses.26 The soldiers, by orders of Captain Heart, commenced building a blockhouse for their defense. Sargent pushed the survey southerly without them. He was determined to reach the Ohio River. He reached the southwest corner of the seventh township southerly on November 1. He was forty-two miles southerly from the East-West Line and the Ohio River was still forty miles away. Sargent next ran the southerly line of his seventh township in an easterly direction, since that was also the direction of his retreat. He came upon Colonel Sproat’s corner post, 2.91 chains westerly and 15.10 chains northerly.27 As per his instructions, Sargent set his own post. Thus, the chaos of double corner posts became the norm in the Seven Ranges. As William Grayson of Virginia had explained to George Washington in urging his support for the Ordinance of 1785, only two sides of each township would need to be run in the field. Sargent, when surveying seven townships, should have run ninety miles on the ground. He had, however, only measured sixty miles due to the fact that most of his township’s southerly lines had not been surveyed. He had run the northerly and southerly lines of his first township, the southerly line of his seventh township and the westerly lines of his seven townships which totaled sixty miles. Sargent submitted a bill for sixty miles for which Congress paid him $120.00.28 He had spent $250.00 in Pittsburgh in preparation for the surveying. The payments to the surveyors did not even cover their declared expenses and certainly did not include any payment for the surveyor’s own time and labor. It was now mid-November and the night time temperatures were below freezing. The soldiers were ill-prepared to return to the field. Several were barefoot and without winter clothing.29 Hutchins received a letter dated October 5, 1786 which informed him that “Joseph Brant with 56 of the Six Nations had gone to the Shawnee towns. In a council he had with some of the Indians at Casheckton [sic] he expressed a wonder that the surveyors would proceed to survey land that did not belong to them.”30 Hutchins, Martin, Sherman, and Sproat began preparing plats of the season’s work. By December, most of the surveyors headed east to their homes and families. Mathews wrote in his journal, Wednesday November 22nd, Genl. Tupper left this place for Massachusetts by whom I had the pleasure of sending letters to friends. Sun. Dec. 3rd, Col. Sproat and Mr. Simpson left this place for their respective homes. Since I have been at Mr. McMahons I have been employed making out their returns, assisting

26. Letter from Thomas Hutchins to Colonel Josiah Harmar, November 6, 1786, Josiah Harmar Papers, Manuscript Division, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan. 27. Mathews’ Journal, Marietta College Library, Marietta, Ohio, p. 4. 28. Papers of the Continental Congress (Library of Congress) No. 41, vol. XI, pp. 415, 416 &431. 29. Journal of Joseph Buell, entry for November 25th, “Captain Hart’s and McCurdy’s companies came in from the survey of the seven ranges. They had a cold, wearisome time—their clothes and shoes worn out, and some of their feet badly frozen.” Samuel P. Hildreth, Being an Account of the First Examination of the Ohio Valley, and the Early Settlement of the Northwest Territory (Cincinnati: H.W. Derby & Company, Publishers, 1848), p. 148. 30. Hutchins’ Papers, vol. II, p. 32, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 30

Chapter One: The Old Seven Ranges the surveyors, but am now out of business. Tuesday the 5th, snow 18 inches deep. Saturday the 10th, Severe snow storm gets to be 30 inches deep by Sunday. Monday Dec. 18th, 1786 this day I am 21 years of age and free by the laws of my country. I am near six hundred miles from my home and poor enough the whole pittance that I can call my own does not amount to more than fifty dollars but while I have my health I feel no anxiety about getting a living and hope to support by an honest industry that Independence of spirit and circumstance which is requisite to Happiness. Monday 25th After breakfast I walked westerly to the river in the company of Mr. Smith, on our return called at Capt. Vanswarnigames where we found a number of Buxom lasses assembled to spend a merry Christmas. We joined in the merriment and pertook in the pleasures of the Evening.”31

When the second season of federal surveying came to a close, the soldiers were thankful. It had cost the army over $2000 dollars to protect Hutchins and his surveyors.32 The ragged and weary troops were relieved to return to their winter quarters at Fort Harmar and Fort McIntosh. Hutchins left Pittsburgh on January 31, 1787 and arrived in New York on February 21. He presented to the Board of the Treasury the plats of four Ranges completed and part of the Fifth Range. Hutchins wrote the President of Congress “I have brought with me the plats and descriptions of four ranges completely surveyed containing in the whole six hundred and seventy-five thousand four hundred and eighty acres.”33 By the spring of 1787, it was apparent to Hutchins that Congress had lost interest in federal surveying of the public lands. Congress then considered sales of tracts of land of not less than one million acres to private investors. It became clear to Hutchins that Congress only wanted to complete the survey of seven ranges during the 1787 season. Hutchins experienced great difficulty in collecting the money owed him due to a lack of government funds. Therefore, he lost interest in the Seven Ranges and accepted a commission to survey the boundary between New York and Massachusetts. He was associated once again with David Rittenhouse and Dr. John Ewing, two of the leading scientific minds in the country.34 Simeon DeWitt, who also represented New York,35 Hutchins, and Rittenhouse completed that survey on September 24, 1787.

The S urv eys

of

1787

The 1787 surveying season began early when Absalom Martin and Israel Ludlow, who had spent the winter at McMahon’s house, took to the field first.36 James Simpson arrived six weeks later and the three men divided the ranges to be surveyed.37 Martin finished Sargent’s Fifth Range as well as resurveyed some of Sargent’s townships, which had no southerly 31. Mathew’s Journal, p. 3. 32. Colonel Josiah Harmar to the Sec. of War, Fort Harmar, November 15, 1786, in Smith, St. Clair Papers, II, pp. 19, 20. 33. New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. LXIV, January 1910, p. 367. 34. Dr. John Ewing was the Provost of the University of Philadelphia. David Rittenhouse was an astronomer, mathematician, instrument maker, surveyor, and engineer. He received a number of honorary degrees from Philadelphia College (University of Pennsylvania) and New Jersey College (Princeton). 35. Brooke Hindle, David Rittenhouse (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1964), p. 289. 36. Mathews’ Journal entry for February 10, 1787, “Captain Martin and Mr. Ludlow left this morning for the woods, to continue and complete the survey of the ranges.” p. 179. 37. Ibid., entry for April 21, “Mr. Simpson left here for the woods.” p.180. 31

Figure 1-5. Township 4, Range II was surveyed by Absalom Martin in 1786. Martin surveyed around the famous Kimberly Grant in Sections 12 and 18.

32

Chapter One: The Old Seven Ranges

lines marked. Simpson returned to his Sixth Range and continued his survey. Israel Ludlow volunteered to survey the Seventh Range which was the most exposed to Indian attacks. Ludlow began the Seventh Range on the second mile of the first township southerly from the East-West Line. That post was where Morris had stopped the previous year. The three surveyors were protected by seventeen soldiers from the newly constructed Fort Steuben. This fort was constructed under the command of Major John F. Hamtramck.38 Hamtramck named the fort for the Prussian military commander who had shaped General Washington’s troops into an army while encamped at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania during the winter of 1777–78.39 The new fort was garrisoned by only ninety soldiers in 1787. Despite military protection, Ludlow had his horses stolen by the Indians, just as Sargent had. General Harmar sent sixty soldiers from Fort Harmar commanded by Captain McCurdy to ensure that the surveyors could complete their work that season.40 By July 10, 1787 the townships of seven ranges had been measured and marked in the field. Ludlow set high standards with his field work. His system of marking the lines and the corners was continued by deputy surveyors for years to come. He notched all line trees on east-west lines with two notches on the north and south sides of the trees. Lines north and south saw line trees notched twice on the east and west sides. He blazed both bearing trees and notched them according to their respective numbers. He notched his posts with the corresponding number of the mile that the post represented. His westerly line of Range Seven proved to be the westerly bounds of the Seven Ranges. Simpson, Martin, and Ludlow retired once again to the McMahon house in Virginia to prepare their plats and descriptions. Both Martin and Simpson were hampered by the absence of notes from the 1786 season and only Ludlow could complete his plats and descriptions. On August 4, 1787 the three surveyors traveled to New York to meet Hutchins and complete the paper work on Ranges Five and Six.41 Hutchins, Martin, Simpson, and Ludlow met with the Board of the Treasury in New York. On September 21 the first auction of public land was held. The sale continued until October 9 when it ceased with the greater part of the townships unsold. During the sixteen days of the sale, thirty-two buyers bought 38. Major John Francois Hamtramck, a Canadian who fought for the colonies during the war, selected a high plateau near Mingo Bottom on which to build the fort. It faced the Ohio and was 50 or 60 yards from the river. Construction began on October 27, 1786 and was complete in early spring of the next year. On May 27, 1787, Fort Steuben was abandoned by the US Army. 39. Baron Frederick Wilhelm Augustus von Steuben prepared “Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States” also known as the “Blue Book.” 40. Mathews’ Journal, entry for June 6, “The troops arrived from Muskingum.” p. 181. 41. Plats and Descriptions of the Seven Ranges can be found in the National Archives, Cartographic Records Branch, Records of the General Land Office (Record Group 49, Reel 49).

33

Figure 1-6. Township 6, Range III is a great example of surveyors for individual purchasers laying out the sections within a township without any federal control. The first sections sold at New York (1 though 6) were laid out to be 95 chains in a westerly direction. This resulted in sections containing 760 acres. The next tier of sections (8 through 12) contained only 520 acres. Clearly, federal surveyors were needed to set control within the township.

34

Chapter One: The Old Seven Ranges

one hundred and forty-eight parcels. These parcels totaled 150,896 acres and brought in to the US Treasury $176,090, of which $87,438 was paid in public securities.42 This was the first and only auction of public land ever held under the Land Act of 1785. No further sales of land in the Seven Ranges were made until July 1, 1801 when the Land Office opened at Steubenville, a small village which had formed around old Fort Steuben. Sales were by whole townships or by lots. Fifteen townships were divided into one-milesquare lots and sold in such a manner. Two whole townships near the Ohio River were sold that way and in the end thirty separate purchases amounted to $72,974. The average price per acre was $1.26, while the costs to Congress to survey one acre was 1 ½ cents. The Geographer’s salary was $5,553.26 and the surveyors were paid $2,163.68 for 1,081.84 miles measured. Extra compensation for the surveyors was $6,602.82 and contingencies were $556.69. The total cost of surveying the Seven Ranges was $14,876.45 which was three times what Congress had intended to spend on the surveying and it had taken three times longer to complete the surveying than had been expected. Martin and Ludlow returned to the frontier during October 1787. Martin purchased 300 acres of land on the Ohio River and founded the village of Jefferson. There, he operated a ferry across the Ohio River.43 Jefferson was later re-platted and named Martin’s Ferry. Ludlow became the chief surveyor for John Cleves Symmes and his associates in 1788. Sargent became a leader of the Ohio Company of Associates and later the Secretary of the Northwest Territory. He served in the 1791 campaign against the Indians and was wounded during the Battle on the Wabash, St. Clair’s Defeat. General Tupper became one of the leaders of the Ohio Company and helped found the town of Marietta. Colonel Ebenezer Sproat became one of the chief surveyors for the Ohio Company along with John Mathews. Mathews became a deputy surveyor for his uncle, General Rufus Putnam, and later a state senator. Thomas Hutchins was appointed to another term of two years as Geographer of the United States by Congress on May 28, 1788. That summer, he submitted the finished plan and description of the Seven Ranges.44 He then made his way back to the frontier for the survey of the Ohio Company’s Purchase of 1,500,000 acres. On April 28, 1789 Thomas Hutchins died of the fevers in the home of his friend John Ormsby in Pittsburgh. He was fifty-nine years old. On May 5, 1802 at the urging of the new Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, Congress amended the Land Act of 1801 to allow the Surveyor General to resurvey the42. Albert Gallatin stated the results of the New York sale as 72,974 acres in the year 1787, for $87,325. Introduction to Laws, Treaties and other Documents having operation and respect to the public Lands collected and arranged pursuant to an act of Congress, passed April 27, 1810 (Washington City: published by Roger C. Weightman, 1811), p. xxii. 43. Richard C. Knopf, ed., Executive Journal of the Northwest Territory, entry for December 28, 1788, p. 53. 44. New York, July 26, 1788, “Gentlemen: You will receive herewith a Plan of the Seven Ranges, containing 1,641,724 acres with the surveys and Descriptions appertaining thereto, also a calculation of the Townships and Fractional Townships in the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Ranges.” The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, vol. LXIV, January 1910, p. 368.

35

Figure 1-7. Examples of section lines in the Old Seven Ranges

36

Chapter One: The Old Seven Ranges

Seven Ranges at his own discretion. Putnam sent deputy surveyors Captain Zacheus Biggs and Alexander Holmes, back to the Seven Ranges. They attempted to correct some of the lots (sections) as to their acreage. Some lots contained over 700 acres while others only 500 acres. (See the plats for Township 8, Range II where Lot No. 25 contains 699.56 acres and Lot No. 36 contains 544.49 acres. Even worse, in Township 8, Range III Lot No. 2 encompassed 748.96 acres, while Lot No. 19 had only 550 acres.) The Seven Ranges were surveyed from 1785 to 1787 when they were thought to be completed by Hutchins. However, Surveyor General Rufus Putnam was so concerned over the inferior quality of the surveying and the lack of interior control within the townships that he sent deputy surveyors Alexander Holmes and Captain Zacheus Biggs back into the Seven Ranges in 1802. These surveyors worked until 1809 when the new Surveyor General, Jared Mansfield, thought their efforts completed. During this second surveying effort, the deputies worked under the Land Act of 1796 and the reserved lots in each township were denoted per that Act. (Also note that these deputies placed the excess or deficiency of each township in the north and west tiers of sections.) Purchasers of the smaller lots complained to Congress that they paid for 640 acres and got only 550. Putnam instructed Biggs and Holmes to give every advantage to the early purchasers by recalculating each township. Even if the lot, or section, lines were privately surveyed and were clearly wrong, they were to be upheld. This directive perpetuated some of the irregularities in the lot or section lines in many of the townships of the Old Seven Ranges. The triumphs and shortcomings of the survey of the Seven Ranges were many. These men of courage and persistence proved that a rectangular grid could be placed upon the land in one of the most difficult areas of Ohio. They led western movement into the wild frontier and survived hostile Indians and hardships beyond our comprehension. They developed a system of marking lines and corners that was used for years to come. Their plats and descriptions are fascinating sources of information as to what that part of Ohio was like in 1785. Even though the quality of the surveying left much to be desired in places, these men performed the best work as possible under the conditions. Indians tried to kill them, the topography was rugged, and they suffered from lack of fresh food and shelter. Furthermore, Congress provided no clear directions. They developed what they needed as they went along and left much for the surveyors of 1796 who worked under Surveyor General Rufus Putnam and the Land Act of 1796. Among the shortcomings, their plats failed to show the relationship between true and magnetic north. They concealed inaccuracies in the measurement of distance and direction. They completely neglected to note double corners and closing errors at township corners. Although lot or section lines were shown as straight on the plats, these lines were far from straight on the ground. Later surveyors, when retracing section lines in the Old Seven Ranges surveys, had to get copies of the 1802–09 subdivisions of these townships to be aware of the variations within each township. Putnam’s surveyors in 1802 and 1803 set

37

Figure 1-8. Examples of section and township corners in the Old Seven Ranges from the original field notes. Closing errors were not corrected. Double and triple corners resulted after Surveyor General Putnam and Surveyor General Mansfield sent deputy surveyors back into the Seven Ranges to correct earlier surveys performed under the leadership of Chief Geographer Thomas Hutchins.

38

Chapter One: The Old Seven Ranges

their own corners which led to triple corners for some townships. The most important source of error in chaining was the roughness of the terrain. Many of the hills were steep and it was with great difficulty that they were surmounted. Hutchins instructed his surveyors to “break chain” as a method to chain horizontally but with Indians chasing the chainmen and trying to kill them, some chaining seems to have been performed as slope chaining. Although Hutchins was well aware of convergence of the meridians and wrote to Congress for further instructions on how to deal with this problem, no answer was forthcoming from that body. The orderly and systematic grid of townships and sections placed upon the ground by Hutchins’ surveyors was interrupted in only two places. First, Captain Ephraim Kimberly was granted 300 acres by President Washington in 1794 for his services as a soldier in the War for Independence.45 He located this grant on the Ohio River near the mouth of Indian Short Creek in Township 4, Range II, Sections 12 and 18. Kimberly had occupied and made improvements on this land by the time the federal surveyors arrived.46 Absalom Martin surveyed Kimberly’s Grant and prepared a deed. This was the first deed recorded in Jefferson County. Second, on October 1, 1787 Congress awarded Township 13, Range VII to Arnold Henry Dohrman, a Portuguese merchant who had provided safe harbor for the United States Navy during the War for Independence. The US Congress reaffirmed the grant on February 27, 1801. The deputy surveyors, under Surveyor General Putnam, did not subdivide this township during the early 1800s. The township plat shows that Sections 15, 16, 21 and 22 are reserved for the US but no other sections. The reserved sections other than Section 16 were given to Dohrman’s heirs on June 28, 1834. The section numbering is per the Land Act of 1785 but the reserved lots or sections are per the Land Act of 1796. No section lines were surveyed by government surveyors inside this township.

Research Notes Several long articles have been written about the survey of the Seven Ranges. Most noteworthy is A Surveyor on the Seven Ranges by B. H. Pershing. “Winthrop Sargent: A Builder in the Old Northwest Territory” also written by Pershing, was an unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of History, University of Chicago, 1927. Albert C. Gallatin compiled, Introduction to Laws, Treaties and Other Documents having operation and respect to the Public Lands, Washington City, Roger C. Weightman, 1811. Anna M. Quattrochi authored Thomas Hutchins, 1730–1789 an unpublished Ph.D. Dissertation, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh, 1944. William D. Pattison contributed, The Survey of the Seven Ranges. Pattison also published his Ph.D. Dissertation entitled, The Beginnings of the American Rectangular Land Survey System in 1957. 45. Royal R. Hinman compiler, Historical Collection from Official Records, Files, &c., of the Part Sustained by Connecticut during the War of the Revolution (Hartford, Connecticut: E. Gleason, 1842). Ephraim Kimberly was born in 1738 in Fairfield, Connecticut. He served in the Fifth Regiment of the Connecticut Line from 1777 to 1781. After the War he moved his family to the frontier and claimed land northwest of the Ohio River near Indian Short Creek. 46. American State Papers (Washington DC: US Government Printing Office, 1832) April 18, 1794, an Act to authorize Ephraim Kimberly to locate the land warrant issued to him for services in the late American Army. 39

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

Another book entitled, With Compass and Chain, Federal Land Surveyors in the Old Northwest, 1785– 1816 was authored by Joseph W. Ernst in 1958 as his PhD Dissertation at Columbia University. Ernst also tells the story of Hutchins and his federal land surveyors in the Old Northwest Territory from 1785 onward. The Thomas Hutchins Papers can be found at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (Collection 308). The Society is located at 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19107. The phone number is 215-732-6200. The field notes and plats for the subdivision of the townships of the Seven Ranges, surveyed under the authority of Surveyor General Putnam are at the Ohio Historical Society in Series 4601, Land Records, State of Ohio, State Auditor, Reels GR 8406, GR 8407, GR 8408, GR 8409, GR 8410 and GR 8411. Plats of the subdivisions of the original townships can be found on Reel GR 8434. These are not the original plats of 1786 and 1787 but the subdivisions and corrections of the original townships. They are, however, much more helpful than the original surveys, as these plats recorded what was found in circa 1802 by Putnam’s deputy surveyors and surveyed inside the townships. Plats and descriptions of the Seven Ranges of Townships as surveyed under the direction of Thomas Hutchins, Geographer of the United States, can be found in the National Archives, Cartographic Records Branch, records of the General Land Office. These are filed in Record Group 49, Reel No. 49.

40

Chapter Two: The Ohio Company’s Purchase Religion, Morality and Knowledge being Necessary They came down the Ohio River from Fort Pitt on the fifty-ton galley Adventure (afterwards rechristened the Mayflower), the three-ton Adelphia, and three large canoes.1 These pioneers brought New England society and culture with them. They had a greater percentage of Harvard and Yale graduates amongst them than any other comparable body of pioneers in American history.2 They named their towns Alexandria, Athens, Belle Prie, Carthage, Troy, and Marietta. Their fort was named Campus Martius.3 They were generals, colonels, majors, and captains from General Washington’s Continental Army. For seven long arduous years they had served faithfully in the army of their new country. After the war ended, they waited five more years to be rewarded for their fidelity and sacrifices for the cause of freedom. Their time arrived in 1788. Five years earlier at Newburgh, New York, 283 officers of General Washington’s high command had signed the Newburgh Petition. This document titled “Petition of the Subscribers, Officers of the Continental Line” was prepared by Colonel Rufus Putnam. The officers demanded that the Continental Congress compensate them for their years of faithful service to the war effort with land on the western frontier. On March 4, 1786 the Ohio Company of Associates was formed at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in Boston.4 General Rufus Putnam, Reverend Manassah Cutler, and General Samuel Holden Parsons served as directors of the Ohio Company. Winthrop Sargent served as secretary.5 On August 29, 1787 Dr. Cutler proposed a contract with the US Board of the Treasury to purchase one million dollars’ worth of land at sixty-six cents per acre. These lands were to be located on the Ohio River between the Seven Ranges and the Virginia Reservation. Part of that land was to be reserved for the promotion of schools and for the support of religion. It was Putnam’s plan of June 16, 1783, titled “Thoughts on A Peace Establishment for the 1.  Charles M. Walker, History of Athens, Ohio and Incidentally of the Ohio Company and the First Settlement in the State at Marietta (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Company, 1869), “On the 2nd of April, 1788, the largest boat was launched, and the pioneers left Sumrill’s. In addition to the large boat, forty-five feet long and twelve feet wide, which was roofed over and had an estimated capacity of fifty tons, there was a flatboat and three canoes.” p. 83. 2.  Clement L. Martzolff, “Ohio University—The Historic College of the Old Northwest,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Publication, vol. 19, p. 411. 3.  Campus Martius in ancient Rome was a walled fortification built on a flood plain of the Tiber River. It was named after the Roman god of war Mars. It was closely linked to soldiers and the army and became an assembly ground to celebrate military triumphs. 4.  The Bunch of Grapes Tavern stood at the corner of State Street and Kilby Street in Boston not far from the site of the Boston Massacre. It was a public inn. It dated back to 1712 and “was the place where General Washington was handsomely entertained. The Declaration of Independence was read from its balcony and the populace pulled down all the British Royal Arms and burnt them in front of the Bunch of Grapes Tavern. General Lafayette stayed at the Bunch of Grapes when in Boston. It was a natural place for Washington’s former officers to meet to form the Ohio Company of Associates in 1787.” Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publication vol. 20, p. 136, “Old Boston Taverns” by Samuel Adams Drake, Boston, 1886. 5.  “Articles of an Association by the name of the Ohio Company,” New York: Samuel and John London, Water Street, 1787.

41

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

United States of America” that proposed land be set aside for the support of education and for the promotion of religion in the western lands.6 The Ohio Company prepared a plan to subdivide its land. The Directors agreed to reserve 5,760 acres at the confluence of the Ohio and the Muskingum Rivers for their capital city. At a meeting held in Bracket’s Tavern on November 23, 1787, plans for the new company town were finalized. Thus it came to be, that a part of the future state of Ohio was planned in a Boston tavern.7 On October 27, 1787 Dr. Cutler and Major Winthrop Sargent, as agents of the Ohio Company of Associates, signed a contract with the Board of the Treasury to purchase one million five hundred thousand acres of land. The Ohio Company made a down payment of five hundred thousand dollars. The next payment, of the same amount, was due at the completion of the boundary survey of the tract.8 The description of this tract as written by Congress stated: “All that certain tract or parcel of land beginning at the place where the western boundary line of the seventh range of townships laid out by the authority of Congress intersects the Ohio and extending thence along that river southwesterly to the place where the western line of the Seventeenth Range of townships to be laid out according to the land Ordinance of the 20th of May, 1785 would intersect the said River and extending thence northerly on the western Boundary line of the said Seventeenth Range of Townships will with the other Line of this contract include one million and a half acres of land, besides the several township lots and parcels of land herein after mentioned to be reserved or appropriated to specific purposes, thence running East to the Western Bounds of said Seventh Range of Townships and thence southerly along those bounds to the place of beginning with the Rights Member and appurtenances thereof, which said tract shall be surveyed by the Geographer or some other officer of the United States.”9 As described in the Land Act of 1785, the townships were six miles square which contained thirty-six lots each one mile square. Lots numbered 8, 11, 16, 26, and 29 were reserved. Lots 8, 11 and 26 were held by the federal government for future disposal when the land appreciated in value. Lot 16 was reserved to promote education in the new land and Lot 29 was reserved by the Ohio Company’s Directors for the promotion of religion in their Purchase. The Directors believed that religion, morality and education were necessary for the soundness of a democratic government.10 6.  Archer B. Hulbert, ed., Ohio in the time of the Confederation, vol. III (Marietta, Ohio: Marietta Historical Commission, 1917), pp. 56–64. “It was Putnam’s breath of view, his amazing foresight and his ring of hopeful patriotism that was unequalled by any writer of his time. Putnam’s choice of West Point on the Hudson which he laid out during the War to be the Grand Arsenal of America is also worthy of special attention.” 7.  Anthony Brackett’s Tavern was in the vicinity of old North Square. It was known as the “Ship-in-Distress Tavern” because of the sign over the front door which read “I am compassed with Sorrow’s Round. Please lend a hand my ship is aground.” Brackett Genealogy, Herbert I. Brackett (Washington DC, 1907), p. 105. 8. Hulbert, Records of the Original Proceedings of the Ohio Company, vol. I, p. 29. 9.  Ibid., pp. 31–32. 10.  These words were originally from Art. 3 of the Northwest Ordinance passed July 13, 1787. “Religion, Morality and Knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind . . .” National Archives Microfilm Publication 332, Roll #9. 42

Figure 2-1

43

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

The Adventure and the Adelphia were constructed by the Massachusetts shipbuilders of the Ohio Company led by Captain Jonathan Devol. On April 1, 1788, these vessels along with three large canoes began their journey down the Ohio from Sumrill’s Ferry on the Youghiogheny River. Six days later they drifted past the mouth of the Muskingum River. The famous Delaware Indian chief, Captain Pipe and several of his people greeted the New Englanders.11 Also present was the garrison of Fort Harmar, at that time headquarters of the First Regiment of the United States Army. Workers began immediately erecting General Putnam’s expansive marquee for business.12 The Superintendent commenced the survey of the first settlement in the Northwest Territory at the Point on the east bank of the Muskingum opposite Fort Harmar. Soon work began on the defensive fortification named Campus Martius. This stockade, which was one hundred and eighty feet square, was located sixty-eight chains from the Ohio River and eight chains from the Muskingum River.13 It was erected at the expense of the Ohio Company. The northeast blockhouse served as the headquarters of the Ohio Company while the southwest blockhouse was Territorial Governor St. Clair’s office. The northwest blockhouse served as a school and a courtroom. The southeast blockhouse was used for housing and entertainment. For the next five years, Campus Martius was the center of life in the new colony, as well as a place of refuge during times of peril. In May, General Putnam wrote to Dr. Cutler, “The men are generally in good health, and, I believe, much pleased with the country; that I am so, myself, you may rest assured. I can only add the situation of the city plat is the most delightful of any I ever saw.”14 On the morning of July 9 the loud report of a ship’s signal gun heralded the arrival of the new Territorial Governor, Arthur St. Clair. The blast of the gun echoed up and down the tree-lined banks of the Muskingum River. All of the pioneers assembled to greet the new governor. Along with St. Clair were the other leading officials of the territorial government. Major Winthrop Sargent was the secretary to the governor. General James M. Varnum, General Samuel H. Parsons, and John Armstrong were the territorial judges. Armstrong soon went back to New England and John Cleves Symmes of New Jersey replaced him as one of the three federal judges northwest of the Ohio River. The new governor was welcomed at Fort Harmar with a grand ceremony and a feast. 11.  On March 31, 1788, Harmar wrote “Old Captain Pipe with several of his nation arrived this day—they are encamped about a mile from hence up the Muskingum.” Josiah Harmar Papers, Manuscript Division, William L. Clements Library, University of Michigan. 12.  E.O. Randall, “Rutland—The Cradle of Ohio.” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publication, vol. 18, 1900, p. 76. “the large tent was reportedly taken from the British at the surrender of General Burgoyne’s army at the Battle of Saratoga, New York, September 19 to October 7, 1777.” 13.  Charles S. Hall, Life and Letters of Samuel Holden Parsons (Binghamton, N.Y.: Otseningo Publishing Company, 1905), p.516. “Selecting the summit of an ancient fortification of the Mound builders for the Campus Martius, they capped it with a huge building of hewn logs, two stories in height, with blockhouses at the angles, and placed within its protecting walls, their women and children.” 14.  Mary Cone, Life of Rufus Putnam with extracts from His Journal and an Account of the First Settlement in Ohio (Cleveland: William W. Williams Company, 1883), p. 107.

44

Washington County—July 27th, 1788  Beginning on the bank of the Ohio where the western boundary line of Pennsylvania crosses it; with that line to Lake Erie; along the southern shore of said Lake to the mouth of the Cuyahoga; up said river to the portage between that and the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum; down that branch to the forks at the crossing place above above Fort Lawrence; with a line to be drawn westerly to the portage on that branch of the Big Miami on which the fort stood that was taken by the French in 1752, until it meets the road from the Lower Shawnee Town to Sandusky; south to the Scioto, down to its mouth; up the Ohio to the place of beginning. Figure 2-2.

 

Statutes of Ohio, III, p. 2096.

45

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

On July 27, 1788 Governor St. Clair created the first county in the Northwest Territory. He wrote; “I have ordained and Ordered and by these Presents do Ordain & Order that all & singular the Lands ly-ing & being within the following Boundaries—VIZ: beginning on the Bank of the Ohio River where the Western Boundary Line of Pennsylvania crosses it, & running with that Line to Lake Erie; thence along the southern Shore of said Lake to the Mouth of the Cayahoga River; thence up said River to the Portage between it & the Tuscarawas Branch of the Muskingum; thence down that Branch to the Forks at the Crossing Place above Fort Lawrence; thence with a Line to be drawn Westerly to the Portage on that Branch of the big Miami on which the Fort stood that was taken by the French in 1752, until it meets the Road from the Lower Shawanese Town to San-dusky; thence South to the Scioto River; thence with that River to the Mouth; thence up the Ohio River to the Place of Beginning, shall be a County, named, & hereafter to be called the County of Washington.”15 Previously in June 1788 General Josiah Harmar had sent a company of thirty soldiers commanded by Lieutenant Nathan McDowell to the falls of the Muskingum River to prepare a site for negotiation of a peace treaty.16 A contractor named Duncan was employed to provide goods and provisions to the Indians who signed the treaty. Two large boats, one eighty-five feet long and the other seventy-two feet long laden with merchandise, made their way slowly up the Muskingum.17 The place selected by the Indians for the treaty was about fifty miles up the Muskingum from Fort Harmar on the east bank of the river. McDowell and his command constructed a council house and shelter for the troops. A large contingent of Delawares arrived along with a band of Chippewas. On the night of July 12 about twenty Chippewas attacked the storehouse containing Duncan’s supplies. The Indians fired on the sentries, killing two soldiers and wounding two others. One of Major Duncan’s men was also killed and scalped.18 The large boats transported the gifts, supplies, and troops back to Fort Harmar. St. Clair’s peace conference was postponed until further notice.19 The son of the great Mohawk chief, Captain Joseph Brant or Thayandanegas, came down the Muskingum trail with about two hundred warriors. They camped at the falls of the Muskingum shortly after the army had returned to Fort Harmar. Young Brant sent a runner to Governor St. Clair, who had arrived in Marietta, to say that Brant wished for the peace council to be held at the original site. The Legend of Louisa St. Clair says that the Governor suspected a nefarious plot by young Brant. He sent his answer with a ranger named Hamilton Kerr who was a skilled hunter and Indian fighter from Fort Henry, Virginia. Kerr traveled up the Muskingum on horseback. When he had traveled a short distance beyond Waterford, he heard the voice of a woman laughing and singing. 15.  Richard C. Knopf, ed., The Executive Journal of the Northwest Territory, p. 28. 16.  Arthur St. Clair’s Papers, Box 2, Folder 4 (Duncan Falls, Muskingum County near the mouth of Salt Creek.) 17. Hall, Life and Letters of Samuel Holden Parsons, p. 522. 18.  Samuel Prescott Hildreth, Pioneer History: Being and account of the first Examinations of the Ohio Valley, and the Early Settlement of the Northwest Territory (Cincinnati: H.W. Derby & Co, Publishers, 1848), p. 221. 19.  Ibid., p. 220. 46

Figure 2-3

47

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

What he saw next shocked him. It was Louisa St. Clair, the Governor’s beautiful daughter, dressed as an Indian.20 She was going to the falls to see young Brant. Kerr could not dissuade the determined young woman, therefore, he and Louisa ventured on together to the falls. When they arrived at the Indian camp, she took her father’s letter to Brant. She found him and reminded him that they had met before while attending school in Philadelphia. Being a gentleman, he bowed and welcomed her into his camp. He was wearing war panoply but was amazed at Louisa’s courage.21 She asked for safe passage back to Marietta for herself and Kerr. Brant said that he would provide for their well-being, as only a chief should do for someone so brave. Three days later they arrived safely at Fort Harmar. Louisa introduced Chief Brant to her father, the Governor.22

The S urv eys

of

1788

General Rufus Putnam was elected Company Superintendent in charge of Surveying with a salary of forty dollars per month plus expenses. He had been a successful surveyor in Massachusetts following the war and had surveyed a large portion of eastern Massachusetts that later became the state of Maine. Putnam initiated the contract system with his surveyors. Colonel Ebenezer Sproat of Rhode Island, Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs of Connecticut, Lieutenant Anselm Tupper of Massachusetts, and John Mathews of Massachusetts were appointed Company surveyors.23 Sproat, Tupper, and Mathews were veterans of the Seven Ranges’ surveys made under the direction of Thomas Hutchins. The surveyors’ pay was set at twenty-seven dollars per month plus subsistence while in the actual service to the Company. Sproat, Mathews, and thirteen assistants commenced surveying on April 10 at the northwest corner of Township 2, Range VII of the Seven Ranges. Colonel Sproat ran a line westerly as the east-west line.24 This township line served the same function as did Hutchins’ East and West line in the Seven Ranges. Township 2, Range VIII of the Ohio Company’s Purchase was surveyed southerly from this line and a fractional Township 1 was found to be north of the Ohio. In laying out the sections of Township 2, it was soon discovered that the new town of Marietta was in the middle of Section 29, which was to be reserved for the 20.  Charles H. Mitchener, Historic Events in the Tuscarawas and Muskingum Valleys and in other portions of the State of Ohio (Dayton: Thomas W. Odell Publisher, 1876),p. 252. Louisa St. Clair was an eighteen-year-old beauty who came west with her father in 1788. “She was educated in the best schools in Philadelphia. She was daring, adventuresome and fearless. She could ride and shoot with the best of men.” 21.  William H. Smith, The Life and Public Services of Arthur St. Clair with his Correspondence and other Papers (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1881), The Legend of Louisa St. Clair vol. I, p. 179. 22.  Ibid., p. 180. 23.  At a meeting of the Directors of the Ohio Company at Brackett’s Tavern in Boston, November 23, 1787, “for the purpose of carrying into effect the surveys and other business of the Company. Ordered: That four surveyors be employed under the direction of the superintendent hereafter named. That twenty-two men shall attend the surveyors including six boat-builders, four carpenters, one blacksmith and nine common laborers. That Colonel Ebenezer Sproat from Rhode Island, Mr. Anselm Tupper and Mr. John Mathews from Massachusetts and Colonel R. J. Meigs from Connecticut be the surveyors. That General Rufus Putnam be the Superintendent of all the business aforesaid, and is to be obeyed and respected accordingly. Signed: Winthrop Sargent, Secretary of the Ohio Company.” 24.  Field Book No. 1 of the Ohio Company’s 8 Acre Lots, Ebenezer Sproat, Page No. 1, Series 4601, Reel GR 8421, Sub. 8, Ohio Historical Society, “Wednesday, 10th of April, 1788, began on the 7th Range at a beech post with 6 notches on the N & S sides, being the N boundary of the 2nd fractional Township in the 8th Range . . .” 48

Figure 2-4

49

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

support of religion in the Purchase. Several efforts to deal with this conflict failed to resolve the problem. Decades later, the Ministerial Lands of Ohio were conveyed to the Governor of the state for his oversight. The owners of many lots in Marietta then obtained a deed in fee simple from the Governor upon payment of a sum sufficient to yield a yearly interest equivalent to the annual Ministerial rent. Ownership of many properties in Marietta is now based upon these Governor’s deeds.25 Meigs and Tupper laid out the streets of the new city parallel to the Muskingum River. The main streets were made to conform to the course of the river, which was North 40 degrees West with others crossing them at right angles. Upon completion of running the street lines, lots were measured ninety feet in the front by one hundred and eighty feet deep. Dr. Cutler named the town Adelphia.26 The large square was named Quadranaou. Square No. 19 was named Capitolium; Square No. 57, Cecilia; and the great road running to the Muskingum River was named Sacra Via. On July 2, 1788 the first meeting of the Directors of the Ohio Company west of the mountains was held under the marquee of General Putnam. The town was renamed Marietta in honor of Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France. Putnam directed Meigs and Tupper to survey the eight acre lots in Township 2, Range VIII. When this survey was completed and the drawing for the eight acre lots was held, none of the high ranking officers of the Ohio Company drew a lot near the new town. Lots too far from town were dangerous to clear and cultivate. Thereupon, Putnam directed his surveyors to lay out the three acre lots around Marietta. When the next drawing took place the results were the same with none of the high ranking officers getting three acres near the town.27 By July 1788 John Mathews had completed the boundary survey of Township 2 and moved on to Township 3.28 As the month of October waned, Mathews completed Ranges VIII and IX, while Ebenezer Sproat finished Ranges X and XI. Return Jonathan Meigs surveyed the meanders of the Ohio River.29 Once again, townships were surveyed southerly to the Ohio River and then numbered northerly as in the Seven Ranges. The meandering Ohio River was the base line for the numbering of the townships in the Purchase, although the “East and West line” controlled the locations of the townships. The townships were surveyed northerly and southerly from this control line. 25.  Thomas J. Summers, History of Marietta (Marietta, Ohio: The Leader Publishing Company, 1903), pp. 122–123. 26.  William P. Cutler and Julia P. Cutler, Life, Journals and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, vol. I (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Company, 1888), p. 376.The name which meant “Brethren” was suggested by Dr. Cutler. 27. Cone, Life of Rufus Putnam with Extracts from His Journal, p. 65. “The survey of these eight acre lots was first to be executed, and a plan of them forwarded to the secretary of the Company. But how disappointed were they to find that not a director or agent had drawn an eight acre lot so near the town as to be able to cultivate it without much hazard. Some remedy they determined on and resolved on the foolish plan to divided three thousand acres of the commons into three acre lots. This was done, but they were as unfortunate as before, none of them was accomplished.” 28.  Ohio Company Surveyors’ Field Notes, Series III, Box 1, Envelopes 7 and 8, Dawes Memorial Library, Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio. 29.  Surveyors’ Field Notes, Series III, Box 4, Envelope 1. Dawes Memorial Library, Marietta College. 50

Figure 2-5

51

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

Early in October 1788 Captain Thomas Hutchins, Geographer of the United States, arrived in Marietta.30 He began to plan the survey of the boundaries of the Scioto Company’s Purchase and the Ohio Company’s Purchase.31 With him were Absalom Martin and Israel Ludlow, both veteran surveyors from the Seven Ranges, and a military escort of fifty-four soldiers commanded by Captain William McCurdy and Ensign Asa Hartshorne. Governor St. Clair had halted the surveying in September.32 On October 4 Hutchins, Martin and the military escort departed Marietta for the mouth of the Scioto River. This party returned to Marietta on November 1. Israel Ludlow continued his survey of the meanders of the Ohio River from where his Seventh Range intersected it to the Scioto. General Harmar sent Lieutenant William Kersey and a small company of soldiers to protect Ludlow.33 Approximately three hundred Indians had arrived for the peace conference to be held at Fort Harmar. St. Clair thought that the sight of surveyors working west of Marietta might harm the chances for a successful treaty with the Indians. St. Clair’s tardiness in producing a treaty proved to be a hardship on the Ohio Company and on October 24, the Company Directors ordered the surveyors back into the woods.34 At that time, four ranges had been surveyed westerly from the Seventh Range. The Directors ordered “that the north Line of the fourth Range of Townships be run out Eighteen Miles from the Seventh Range.” At the November meeting they directed “That the Surveys . . . extend to the 5th Township in the 11 Range.”35 By the end of the surveying season in December, five ranges and part of the sixth range had been chained and marked on the ground by the Ohio Company’s surveyors.36 On December 12 Harmar wrote “The geographer is at present sick at Fort Pitt. If he was able to come down

52

30.  St. Clair’s Papers, Box 2, Folder 6, Letter from Thomas Hutchins to Arthur St. Clair. 31.  “Copy of the Company’s Contract for a certain Tract of Land, North West of the River Ohio—By the Rev. M. Manassah Cutler and Major Winthrop Sargent as Agents for the Directors of the Ohio Company of the one part and the Honorable Samuel Osgood, Walter Livingston and Arthur Lee Esquires (the Board of the Treasury for the United States of America) acting by and under the Authority of the honorable Congress of the said States, New York October the 27, 1787,” states “said tract shall be surveyed by the Geographer or some other officer of the said United States to be authorized for that purpose who shall plainly mark the said East and West line and shall render one complete plat or map of the said tract to the Board of the Treasury of the United States. Reserving in each Township lot number sixteen for the purposes mentioned in the said Ordinance of the 20th of May, 1785, Lot number twenty-nine to be appropriated to the purposes of religion and Lots number eight, eleven and twenty-six for the use and subject to the disposition of the Congress of the United States and also reserving out of the said tract so to be granted two complete Townships to be given perpetually for the purposes of an University.” Archer B. Hulbert, Records of the Ohio Company, vol. I, p. 32. 32. Hildreth, Pioneer History: Being an account of the First Examinations of the Ohio Valley, p. 243. “After the 20th of September, the surveys of the purchase were discontinued, by the advice of the governor, probably on account of the dislike of the Indians, until the treaty then in train could be accomplished.” 33.  Papers of the War Department 1784–1800, Letter from Harmar to General Knox, December 4, 1788. 34. Hulbert, Ohio in the Time of the Confederation, vol. I, p. 67. 35.  Ibid., p. 69. 36.  Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, vol. I, p. 438. “The surveys of the 8 acre, 3 acre and city lots being completed, and the expectation of a Treaty still continuing, all further surveys were suspended until about five weeks ago, when we all concurred in an Order to extend four of our Town lines to the 11th Range. The meanders of the River, and the first and second lines of the 12th Range are completed, the 3rd and 4th, on a Treaty being rendered certain and soon to commence are, to the desire of the Governor, suspended at present.” Letter from Samuel H. Parsons to Manasseh Cutler.

Figure 2-6

53

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

& take the latitude of the northern corner of the 10th township of the Seventh Range, Mr. Ludlow, who is a smart active young fellow, could run the northern boundary.”37

The Tow n

of

M arietta

While Sproat and Mathews were surveying the range lines, Marietta was growing by leaps and bounds. It was an exciting time on the Ohio River. Barges and boats arrived daily with supplies and new settlers headed down the river. The town was bustling with activity and excitement. The First Regiment of the US Army was now headquartered at Fort Harmar. The construction of Campus Martius was progressing rapidly. Also, defensive works were planned for the Point that came to be known as The Point Garrison during the Indian War. In December 1788 James Backus of Connecticut wrote home to his parents, “there are 150 horses, sixty cows and seven yoke of oxen here . . . the emigrants that pass down the river for Kentucky and other parts of the Western Country are amazing. We have a militia formed who assemble every Sunday & are fined for not attending. We have preaching and a service regularly once a week, likewise a school.”38 A few days later he wrote to his brother, Elijah, “This settlement has progressed faster than could have been expected. There are thirty families & more than four hundred people here at this time. There are a number of boats just arrived under the direction of Colonel Morgan of New Jersey. A passage down the river is pleasant & expeditious. Boats frequently perform a journey of one hundred miles in 24 hours with little more than the force of the current. Game has been very plenty about us till our people & the Indians killed and drove most of it away. Turkeys however, are easily got now & fine fat ones may be bought for a shilling, that weigh near twenty pounds. The Indians are here to make a treaty. I suppose about 300 of them, the chiefs of the Senecas, the Cayugas, the Mingows, the Munseys, the Tuscarawas, the Delawares, Wyandots, Chippewas & Patawatimes are present. Their chiefs have great influence over their people.”39 Arthur St. Clair was suffering from a terrible onset of gout and had to be carried to the negotiations held in the council house at Fort Harmar. On January 9, 1789 Governor St. Clair concluded two treaties. The first was with the Six Nations (excepting the Mohawks). The second treaty was with the Wyandot, Delaware, Chippewa, Ottawa, Pottawatomie, and Sac Nations, confirming the Treaties of Fort McIntosh and Fort Finney. The Shawnee nation did not attend the negotiations. The Indians seemed to not give much credence to this new treaty although St. Clair believed “peace and friendship have been renewed and confirmed between the United States and the . . . Indian nations.40 After the conclusion of the treaty negotiations, a feast was held for the Indians who had signed and gifts were distributed. 37.  Harmar’s Diary, April 9 to June 6, 1789, Clements Library, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. 38.  James Backus’ letters, Backus-Woodbridge Collection, Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, MSS 128. 39.  Ibid., p. 161 40.  Smith (ed.), Life and Public Services of Arthur St. Clair, vol. II, p. 108.

54

Figure 2-7. Map showing the New England propensity for long “River Lots” which allowed many more settlers to have river frontage. This greatly enhanced access to the river, which was the federal highway system of its day. Note that the Ohio Company did not adhere closely to the Land Act of 1785 in subdividing its townships but imposed its own system for the equal division of land among the 822 investors.

55

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

However, there could be no peace in the Northwest Territory without the acquiescence of the Shawnee and the Miami tribes. St. Clair was aware that trouble might still arise. In a letter to the President dated May 2, 1789, St. Clair noted, “. . . several nations on the Wabash, and the rivers which empty themselves into it, that are ill disposed, and from whom there is reason to expect that a part of the frontier of Virginia and the settlement forming on the Miami will meet annoyance.”41

The S urv eys

of

1789

Early in the spring of 1789 Ebenezer Sproat began the survey of Range XIII. John Mathews commenced the survey of Range XIV with James Backus. Anselm Tupper surveyed in the same range. Jeffrey Mathewson took to the field to work on Range XII. Return Jonathan Meigs surveyed the meanders of the Muskingum and Hockhocking Rivers. Meigs also completed his survey of the meanders of the Ohio River and identified land near the Kanawha and the southwest part of the Ohio Company’s Purchase.42 On March 11, 1789 Rufus Putnam wrote to Manasseh Cutler informing him that Israel Ludlow arrived yesterday from Judge Symmes’ settlement on the Miami. “Mr. Ludlow has surveyed the Ohio down to the Scioto River, and Mr. Martin has taken the meanders of the Scioto 60 or 70 miles up. In two weeks Mr. Ludlow will begin the survey of the Northern Boundary Line of the whole purchase. [This was the northerly line of the Scioto Company Purchase of 3,500,000 acres of which Cutler, Putnam and Sargent were a part.]43 By these measures you will perceive the necessity we are under to be ready as soon as possible to make the second payment.”44 On May 16 Putnam wrote that “Mr. Ludlow has been on the northerly boundary three weeks or more. We have reason to expect that in three or four weeks more that survey will be completed.”45 By previous calculations, Ludlow had determined that with the meanders of the Ohio and the Scioto taken into account, the northerly line of the purchase needed to comprise the specified acreage should extend from the Scioto to the northwest corner of Township 10, Range VII of the Seven Ranges.46 Ludlow began the line on the east bank of the Scioto near present day Powell in Delaware County and ran the line just north of present day Dresden in Muskingum County. Ludlow and Ensign Hartshorne returned to Fort Harmar on June 6, 1789 having completed the survey.47 41.  Ibid., p. 111. 42.  Surveyors’ Field Notes, Series III, Box 4, Envelope 3, Dawes Memorial Library, Marietta College. 43.  Joseph W. Ernst, With Compass and Chain, the Federal Land Surveyors in the Old Northwest, 1785–1816 (New York: Arno Press, 1979) “When Manasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargent agreed, in 1787, to join Colonel Duer’s Scioto scheme to their purchase, they made a serious mistake.” 44.  Cutler and Cutler, Life, Journals and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, p.442. 45.  Ibid., p. 446. 46.  Ludlow’s plat of this survey can be found in the National Archives, Cartographic Records Branch, Records of the General Land Office, Old Map File, Records Group 49, Case Files. 47.  Harmar’s Diary, June 6, 1789, “The party under command of Ensign Hartshorne retuned to the garrison this morning after a very fatiguing march in escorting & protecting Mr. Ludlow the Surveyor who has now completed the northern boundary of the Scioto purchase & run down the Scioto until he met where Mr. Martin the former surveyor left off.” 56

Chapter Two: The Ohio Company’s Purchase

I ndian Attack

on

J oh n M athews

By the summer of 1789 the company surveyors had completed the perimeter boundaries of the townships of the Fifteenth Range. During August, John Mathews and James Backus were surveying the Sixteenth Range near the Ohio River. To speed up the work, they split their party of assistants and soldiers. Mathews was working on the southerly line of the third township north of the Ohio River with two assistants and six soldiers when Indians suddenly attacked the men and stole their packhorse carrying the party’s supplies. Mathews ordered a guard posted throughout the night. No further attack was made during the night and the guard was dropped with the coming dawn. The small party of nine men then ventured into the forest for their morning toilet. Suddenly, the air crackled with the sound of muskets and a chainman named Patchen was shot through the heart and died. The next Indian volley killed five of the soldiers. Mathews had been caught with his pants down and fled through the forest as fast as he could run. The other chainman named Russell ran for safety with him. A soldier who had concealed himself under a log during the attack also survived.48 The Indians did not pursue the fleeing surveyors but set about stripping and scalping their victims.49 Mathews, Russell, and the soldier reached the Ohio River exhausted after a twelve mile flight through the woods. After a while, they were picked up by a boat commanded by Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs.50 The Colonel then ordered the boat to the Virginia side of the river and defensive works were erected. The next day, James Backus and his party, who had not been attacked, made their way to the Ohio River. All were loaded on the boat which made its way slowly up the river to Marietta. At a special meeting held on September 22, 1789, Mathews was informed by the Company Directors that since he could produce no filed notes of his surveys he would not be paid for his losses. To add insult to injury, poor Mathews had lost not only his clothing but his surveyor’s compass, which delighted the Indians. The soldier concealed under the log watched the Indians as they played with the magnetic needle. He also lost his surveyor’s chain as well as his camp equipage and the packhorse. “The petition of Mr. Mathews being considered, Resolved that the Agents could not grant the Prayer thereof.”51 In October 1789 the Directors of the Ohio Company voted to pay their surveyors $3.33 per mile actually run and marked in the field.52 By this time, Thomas Hutchins had assigned Israel Ludlow the task to survey eighty miles up the Scioto River and then to run a line due 48.  S.P. Hildreth Collection, vol. II, Items 343 and 344, Dawes Memorial Library, Marietta College. 49. Hildreth, Pioneer History, “The point where he was attacked is on the north line of township no. two, range sixteen, two miles west of the northeast corner.” pp. 251–257. 50.  The American Museum, “A Letter from Mr. John Mathews to General Putnam.” November, 1789, “The 7th instant, about sunrise, my party was fired upon in our camp, and six soldiers (which were all except the corporal) and one of my hands were killed.” p. 426. 51.  Archer B. Hulbert, ed., The Records of the Original Proceedings of the Ohio Company, vol. I, pp. 120–121. 52.  Ibid., p. 125. Mathews was later reimbursed $121.00 for compensation for his losses to the Indians while surveying for the Ohio Company. p. 225.

57

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

east to the Seven Ranges. This was to be the northerly line of the Scioto Company’s Purchase.53 Absalom Martin had started the survey up the Scioto River in 1788. Martin was protected by a military escort commanded by Lt. McDowell. Martin and his party turned back due to the Indian threat.54 Hutchins returned to Pittsburgh as his health failed and it was there that he died. Ludlow completed this assignment in the summer of 1789 and then traveled to Cincinnati to survey for Judge John Cleves Symmes in the Miami Purchase. During 1789 Ohio Company surveyors measured and marked 57,000 acres of land.55 Marietta consisted of about eighty houses within a radius of a mile in the spring of 1790. Several more houses dotted the landscape further up the Muskingum River. The estimated population of the town was then about 450 people. The Belle Prie Associates had passed the winter of 1788–89 in Marietta. In early April, thirty families led by Colonel Israel Putnam moved to their new lands about twelve miles below Marietta.56 There, they constructed a fortification known as Farmers Castle at the middle settlement about one-half mile below the upper settlement. Over 100 people lived in the three Belle Prie settlements. Thirteen blockhouses were arranged in two rows. The fort was eighty rods long and six rods wide. Major Nathan Goodale was the first commanding officer of Farmer’s Castle serving until 1793. That year, he constructed his own stockade above the west end of Harman Blennerhassett’s Island. Farmer’s Castle was next commanded by Major Nathan Cushing.57 Captain Jonathan Stone erected Stone’s Garrison at the upper settlement. The third settlement further down the river was known as Newberry’s Station. Colonel Putnam spent the winter of 1789–90 at Belle Prie. He returned to Connecticut the following autumn to fetch his wife and children but did not return to the frontier until after General Wayne’s Treaty in 1795. In December 1789 General Josiah Harmar moved the US Army, consisting of three hundred soldiers, from Fort Harmar to Fort Washington. He left Captain David Ziegler in command of twenty soldiers at Fort Harmar. Fort Washington had been constructed during the summer of 1789, just east of Cincinnati. It was the most advanced and formidable US post in the territory. Harmar moved the army for a planned offensive thrust against the Miami towns on the St. Mary’s and St. Joseph’s Rivers. The army’s departure left Marietta exposed and vulnerable to Indian attacks. 53.  The Scioto Company led by William Duer of New York, entered into an agreement in 1787 with Rev. Cutler and Winthrop Sargent to purchase the rights of preemption from the federal government to 3,500,000 acres between the Seven Ranges and the Scioto River. Their efforts failed. 54. Smith, Life and Public Services of Arthur St. Clair, vol. II, p. 109. 55. Summers, The History of Marietta, p. 78. 56.  Colonel Israel Putnam was the son of General Israel Putnam (1718–1790), Old Put of Revolutionary War fame. Colonel Putnam was also a cousin to General Rufus Putnam. Colonel Israel Putnam’s direct line descendant, Nancy Putnam Hollister, served as Mayor of Marietta and as the Lt. Governor of Ohio during George Voinovich’s administration (1994–98). 57.  C. E. Dickinson, History of Belpre, Washington County, Ohio (Parkersburg: 1920), pp. 9–18.

58

Figure 2-8

59

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

General Harmar led his army of 1400 men out of Fort Washington in the fall of 1790. The army’s orders were to punish the marauding Miami Indians and their cohorts. Upon approaching the chief Miami town Kekionga, Harmar split his command twice. The Indians, under the leadership of Chief Little Turtle, destroyed two of Harmar’s divisions. The remnants of the army retreated to the Ohio River and safety, leaving the frontier vulnerable to attack. Colonel Ebenezer Sproat, who was in command of the defenses at Marietta, declared martial law and ordered the gates at the Point Garrison closed at sunset.58 Surveying in the Ohio Company’s Purchase was halted in fear of further Indian depredations. By the end of 1790 most of the township boundaries in ranges VIII through XIII had been surveyed in the Ohio Company’s Purchase. Next, the subdivisions of each township were planned. The Ohio Company devised a complex plan to guarantee that every subscriber or shareholder received an equal amount of land. To insure that everyone had a fair chance at river frontage, the parcels were drawn at random and chances were that they would not be contiguous. Most shareholders’ seven parcels were spread over the Purchase.

M assacre

at

B ig B ottom

That fear of further Indian deprivation was realized on January 2, 1791, at an advanced outpost about thirty miles up the Muskingum River from Marietta. A company of thirty-six men and women had started the settlement at Big Bottom. In late autumn of 1790, they had constructed a blockhouse of large beech logs but did not chink between the logs with clay and lime. This, they thought, could be done on some rainy day. The Wyandot and Delaware tribes were not known to send out war parties during the winter. This winter, however, a war party was sent to destroy the Waterford and Wolf Creek settlements. The large party came down the Muskingum Trail. This new outpost at Big Bottom caught them by surprise. After reconnoitering the settlement, the Indians crossed the frozen Muskingum River and surprised the unprepared settlers at dinner time. The Indians began shooting through the gaps between the logs of the blockhouse at the twenty or so terrified men, women, and children huddled inside. With the first volley Zebulon Throop of Massachusetts, who had just returned from the mill with a bag of meal, fell face first into the fire and died. The Indians broke down the door. The attack was executed so swiftly the men inside did not have time to reach for their loaded weapons stacked in the corners of the blockhouse. Those who were still alive were killed by the tomahawk. Only a stout, resolute, back-woods Virginia woman named Mrs. Isaac Meeks offered any resistance. She grabbed an axe and when the first Indian rushed through the door, she swung the axe and severed his ear and half of his face. She was killed immediately by another warrior. When the Wyandots and the Delawares had ended their carnage, twelve people were dead including Mrs. Meeks and 58. Summers, History of Marietta, p. 99. There were twenty houses and three blockhouses at the Point. A line of palisades reached from the Muskingum to the northeast blockhouse and from there to the Ohio. During 1792, US troops under the command of Lieutenant John Tillinghast erected a large blockhouse on the northeast side of Front Street. After St. Clair’s defeat, the garrison was put under military law with Captain Jonathan Haskell in command. 60

Chapter Two: The Ohio Company’s Purchase

her two children. All were scalped and their bodies mutilated. Five settlers were taken prisoner. One settler, a young boy, escaped. The Indians threw the bodies of their victims into the smoldering fire and attempted to burn the blockhouse, which would not burn because the logs were too green. Two men, who had heard the noise of the attack from a distance, spread the alarm down the river to Wolf Creek Mills and Waterford. Several of the men of these settlements were in Marietta for the Court of Quarter-Sessions. The few men remaining and the women rallied for their common defense and most likely prevented further massacres. Two runners were sent to Marietta and on January 4, Captain Joseph Rogers led a company of militia to Big Bottom.59 Roger’s party discovered bodies so badly burnt that only two could be identified. All the victims were buried in a common grave where the blockhouse had once stood. Work began the next day on the construction of Fort Frye near Waterford. Captain William Gray, a Revolutionary War veteran and one of the original 48 who landed with Putnam, oversaw the construction. With time of the essence, the fort, built with three sides and three blockhouses, was finished in one month.60 The Ohio Company petitioned Congress for protection and appealed to the “parental tenderness of the Government of the United States for assistance.”61 Congress reacted with the creation of the Donation Tract.

I sr ael L udlow ’s S urv ey

of

1,500,000 Acres

The only surveyor willing to take the field during such a tense and violent time was Israel Ludlow, who arrived in Marietta in the early part of 1791. He was ready to begin the boundary survey of the 1,500,000 acre tract conveyed to the Ohio Company by Congress. Ludlow had surveyed the meanders of the Ohio River from the westerly line of the Seventh Range to the Scioto River in 1789 for Thomas Hutchins. With this information, Ludlow calculated how many miles he should measure northerly on the westerly line of the Seventh Range and then run a line west to the westerly line of the Seventeenth Range so as to include the desired acreage. Judge Joseph Gilman, one of the committee appointed by the Directors of the Ohio Company to make a plan of the Purchase and General Rufus Putnam, Superintendent of Surveys reported to the Board of Directors, “That agreeably to Judge Gilman’s calculation of the Meanders of the Ohio River, allowing for the Sphereal figure of the Earth or difference of Miles, making a Degree of Longitude in each parallel of Latitude, The Ohio Company’s Purchase ought to extend on the west boundary of the Seventh Range of Townships, North from the Ohio, seven hundred and fifty Chains, Eighty Links. That agreeably to General Putnam’s calculations allowing for the figure of the Earth aforesaid the said tract will extend on the west boundary of the Seventh Range, seven hundred forty one chains & sixty Links. That from the Minutes given by Captain Ludlow to General Putnam the line of said tract will extend north from the Ohio but six hundred and Eighty seven chains, thirty-six links.” 62 59.  “Big Bottom and its History,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Publication, vol. 15, pp. 2–10. 60.  Elizabeth T. Owen, Fort Frye on the Muskingum (Beverly, Ohio: 1932). 61. Hulbert, Ohio in the time of the Confederation, vol. II. 62. Hulbert, Records of the Ohio Company, vol. II, pp. 229–230. 61

Figure 2-9

62

Chapter Two: The Ohio Company’s Purchase

The Board after due consideration settled on a distance on the westerly line of the Seventh Range of 691 chains and 48 links. Ludlow’s pay was set at one and one-half dollars per day, while the chain carriers and packhorse men would receive forty one and two-thirds cents per day. Packhorses and boats were to be provided by the Ohio Company. Ludlow went to Fort Harmar and met with Major David Ziegler, the commanding officer of the post. There, he requested a military escort for the surveying season but was refused by the Major. Ziegler thought that he did not have sufficient forces to defend the town of Marietta if it was attacked because he had only twenty soldiers. With this news, Ludlow dismissed his chainmen and assistants and traveled to Fort Washington where his request for military protection was again denied, this time by General Harmar. Simultaneously, General St. Clair was assembling an army for another campaign against the Indians. Finally an application to St. Clair resulted in a military escort for Ludlow of fifteen men commanded by a sergeant.63 Ludlow began at the intersection of the Ohio River with the westerly line of his Seventh Range and surveyed northerly the calculated distance. He then turned westerly and chained sixty miles (the equivalent of ten ranges), setting posts every mile. On October 20, 1791 after setting a post at the northwest corner of the Seventeenth Range, Ludlow turned southerly.64 Ludlow’s chainmen measured seventy-nine miles thirtythree chains and ten links to the Ohio River setting a post or blazing a tree each mile.65 In his letter to Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton, dated May 5, 1792, Ludlow wrote of the loss of six men of the escort plus the loss of all of his packhorses and equipage to the Indians.66 By the time this survey party arrived at the Ohio River, they were desperate and out of provisions. They constructed a raft made of logs and drifted down the Ohio River to safety at Limestone. Ludlow apologized to Hamilton for his delay in finishing the work assigned him but was pleased to present Hamilton with a plat of the survey of The Ohio Company’s Purchase. Ludlow’s map showing the boundaries of the Purchase was entitled, “A Survey of the Purchase Made by Winthrop Sargent & Manasseh Cutler Esqrs. as Agents for the Ohio Company, Containing One Million Seven Hundred & Eighty One Thousand, Seven Hundred & Sixty Acres, Including the Reservations.”67 While Ludlow and his retinue were making their way down the westerly bounds of the Seventeenth Range in late November, the horrific news reached Marietta of the utter 63.  Harry B. Teetor, Life and Times of Colonel Israel Ludlow, pp. 50–51. 64.  This corner is approximately three miles east of Sugar Grove in Fairfield County and near Rush Creek in Marion Township in Hocking County. Map from the Hocking County Engineer’s Office. 65.  Of particular importance of this survey were the six-mile trees or posts as these were later used by Governor St. Clair to describe county boundaries. The forty-two mile tree was used to describe Ross County in 1798. It today is at the northeast corner of Franklin Township of Jackson County. 66. Teetor, Life and Times of Colonel Israel Ludlow, p. 51. 67.  National Archives, Cartographic Records Branch, Records of the General Land Office, Old Map File, Records Group 49, Case F Files.

63

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

destruction of the US Army under command of Major General Arthur St. Clair. St. Clair had pushed his undisciplined and poorly supplied army of militia and a small number of regular soldiers to the banks of the Wabash River. On the morning of November 4 St. Clair was attacked by combined forces of Little Turtle, Blue Jacket, French-Canadians, and the English. The Indians almost completely destroyed St. Clair’s army and the few survivors fled in terror back to Fort Washington. On December 5, the Directors of the Company hired two runners to find Ludlow and warn him of St. Clair’s defeat.68 By this time, Ludlow and the survivors of his party were on their raft floating down the Ohio River. The boundary of the Ohio Company’s Purchase had been marked in the field and Ludlow had the field notes safe in hand.

The S econd C ontr act Upon Ludlow’s completion of the boundary survey, a meeting of the Directors of the Ohio Company was held in Philadelphia during February 1792. The financial condition of the Company was critical. Much of their funds had been spent on defensive works against the Indians and to help the French immigrants at Gallipolis.69 The second payment of $500,000 was due and the situation was dire as that amount could not be raised.70 The Directors petitioned Congress for relief. Congress responded on March 10, 1792 by conveying 750,000 acres which was the actual acreage that the Company had paid for previously.71 This tract became known as the First Purchase. On April 21, 1792 Congress conveyed an additional 314,285 acres to the Company and this became known as the Second Purchase. Of the second grant, 214,285 acres were to be paid for in army warrants and handled by the Company as its own. By the calculations of the Directors, the company surveyors were to survey down the westerly line of the Sixteenth Range thirty-five miles to acquire the correct acreage. An additional 100,000 acre tract was granted by Congress.72 This tract was to be awarded in parcels of 100 acres to each male, not less than eighteen years of age, who would settle on the land for a period of five years. The settler had to build a house, clear his land, and plant orchards. He also was required to be armed, ready, and willing to fight the Indians. 73 68. Hildreth, Pioneer History: Being and Account of the First Examinations of the Ohio Valley, p.297. 69. Cone, Life of Rufus Putnam with extracts From His Journal and an Account of the first Settlement in Ohio, p. 68. “Our second payment to congress of five hundred thousand dollars was now due, and on the non-payment of which was a question whether the land we had paid for might be forfeited. Besides, we had already expended more than nine thousand dollars in erecting works, paying militia, etc. Under the circumstances it was absolutely impossible to fulfill our contract with congress, and there was the utmost danger of the settlement being broken up.” Rufus Putnam. 70.  William Duer had failed to pay for the 148 shares that he agreed to purchase from the Ohio Company. Duer owed Putnam $2861.42 for building cabins for the French at Gallipolis. Richard Plat, the treasurer of the Ohio Company was in jail and he owed the Company $80,000. 71.  Copy of patent to Rufus Putnam, et al., to 750,000 acres (the first purchase) in trust for the Ohio Company of Associates, May 10, 1792. Rufus Putnam Papers, Dawes Library, Marietta College. 72.  The Donation Tract, May 10, 1792, Washington County Recorder’s Office, Deed Book 1, Pg. 122. 73. Hulbert, Records of the Ohio Company, vol. I, cxxx, cxxxi. 64

Chapter Two: The Ohio Company’s Purchase

The Company, therefore, received in total 1,064,000 acres instead of its original deed for 1,500,000 acres. The two purchases were treated as one tract by the Directors, who then set about subdividing the land equally among the investors. After the reserved lots were subtracted, the first and second purchases amounted to 964,285 acres to be subdivided. At the time the patents were issued, only 822 shareholders were eligible (instead of the one thousand that had been originally been anticipated) and each was entitled to 1173.37 acres.74 Seven separate tracts were grouped into six divisions. In the complex and mysterious method of the Directors, each shareholder would receive one 8-acre lot (First Division), one 3-acre lot (Second Division), one house lot of 0.37 acre (Third Division), one 160-acre lot (Fourth Division), one 100-acre lot and one 640-acre lot (both Fifth Divisions) and finally one 262-acre lot or fractional section known as the Sixth Division. Although unintentional, this method of subdivision was inherent with much complication and complexity. This system of land subdivision was based on the value of river frontage. Every farmer needed access to the rivers and the river lots provided as much frontage as possible. The waterways were the primary source of ingress-egress and the only effective method of getting goods and produce to market. Consequently, river lots were much sought after. Many of these river lots can be seen on the township plats along the Ohio, Muskingum, and Hocking Rivers. The reduction in the size of the Purchase made it necessary to make land substitutions within the new Purchase for lands now outside the reduced boundary. The Directors used the Donation Tract to fulfill their obligations. Nine allotments were made by the Directors along the Muskingum and Wolf Creek which encompassed 17,000 acres. Occupation was required as per the terms set down by Congress. These allotments were Wiseman’s Bottom, Limestone Hill (Rainbow), Bear Creek, Cat’s Creek, Big Run, Waterford, West Branch of Wolf Creek, and Northwest of Wolf Creek Mills.

The C ollege Tow nships The Act of Congress of October 27, 1787 which conveyed the original 1,500,000 acres to the Company specified that two whole townships were to be “given perpetually for the purposes of a University.”75 On December 16, 1795 the Directors set aside Townships 8 and 9 in Range XIV for this purpose. These townships today are Athens and Alexander Townships in Athens County. The Ohio Company surveyors had previously surveyed these townships in 1795 and subdivided them into sections and fractional sections in 1796.76 In the early part of 1797 a considerable number of newly arrived immigrants assembled in Marietta eager to obtain lands located in the two reserved townships. Later, the board of Ohio University developed a very convoluted system of subdivision. In 1802 the territorial legislature passed an act creating the American Western University but in 1804 the state legislature changed the name to the Ohio University. 74.  The Rufus Putnam Papers, Putnam held fifty-nine shares for associates in the Ohio Company, May 12, 1792, Drawer # 1, Dawes Memorial Library, Special Collections, Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio. 75. Hulbert, Records of the Ohio Company, vol. I, p. 33. 76.  Plat of Township 8, Range XIV by Jeffery Mathewson, Slack Research Collection, Marietta College, Dawes Memorial Library, MSS 002, Oversize Folder 01, Item 07. 65

66

Figure 2-10

Chapter Two: The Ohio Company’s Purchase

The trustees of the University developed a plan of subdivision based on leasing lots of various sizes and shapes for the term of ninety-nine years, renewable forever. These “Lease Lots” or “Farm Lots” were numbered consecutively as the leases for them were issued. Lots were to include at least 80 acres and not more than 240 acres. A different system of numbering the lots was employed in each of the two townships. The lots were subdivided during October and November, 1804 by Rufus Putnam and William R. Putnam.77 Several squatters were discovered who were not friendly to the surveyors. Therefore, these parcels were surveyed to include the acreage occupied by the squatters and assigned the next lease number. Leases were first offered to the public in January 1806. In Township Eight, the Lease Lots were numbered within each section from one to the highest number within the section. Duplicate numbers sometimes appeared within a section. In Township Nine, the lots were numbered from one in the southeast corner to the highest number (214) within the township. Much confusion resulted.78 Judge Samuel B. Pruden had served as Athens County Surveyor for years and knew of the confusion caused by the different numbering systems. In 1835 he renumbered the lots. “He began at the southeast corner of the respective townships and numbered the lots northward by the sections to the north side of the township. In this way each lot was given duplicate numbers; one being the original lease lot number, and the other that given by Mr. Pruden. These numbers are frequently referred to as ‘Pruden Numbers,’ but should never be used, as no legal, or official action was ever had making them valid.”79 Another irregularity found in the Ohio Company’s Purchase is Township 8, Range XVI, which has two sections numbered 2, two sections numbered 3, and the same duplication for sections numbered 4, 5, and 6. This happened because the Ohio Company surveyors were instructed to only measure thirty-five miles southerly on the westerly bounds of Range XVI and then run the southerly line easterly. This cut off or removed the southerly most tier of lots or sections of that township when they used the calculations for the exact amount of 214,285 acres granted by the Second Purchase. After the Land Act of 1796, Levi Whipple, US Deputy Surveyor, surveyed this tier of sections as part of the survey of Congress Lands East of the Scioto and numbered them incorrectly. He numbered them beginning with one in the southeast corner and thence westerly to number 6 in the southwest corner. These should have been numbered with 31 in the southwest corner to 36 in the southeast corner. However, Whipple’s numbering was retained and now this township has duplicate section numbering. 77.  The Rufus Putnam Papers, Folder 4, 1804, Items 15 and 16. 78.  William E. Peters, Ohio Lands and Their History (Athens, OH: The Lawhead Press, 1930), p. 187. 79.  William E. Peters, Legal History of the Ohio University, Athens Ohio (Cincinnati: The Western Methodist Book Concern, 1910), pp. 157–158. “The Pruden numbers received no legal action and are not valid but these numbers do serve to locate Lease Lots accurately within the two townships.”

67

Figure 2-11. Township 8, Range 16, was where the Ohio Company grant ended, one whole mile northerly from said township’s southerly line. Company surveyors stopped on that line in 1795. Deputy Surveyor, Levi Whipple surveyed the remaining mile as part of the Congress Lands East of the Scioto in 1798 and incorrectly numbered Sections One thru Six. Hence Township 8, Range 16 had two Sections numbered 2 all the way to Section 6. Legal Descriptions must refer to the Ohio Company’s Purchase or the Congress Lands East of the Scioto in this township.

68

Figure 2-12. The Ohio Company’s leaders held up Township 4, Range 15 as the example of how to subdivide a township for 22 investors. Note the “fractional Lots” of 262 acres each are numbered to correspond to the numbers on the 640 acre “lots” for the same land holder.

69

Figure 2-13

70

Chapter Two: The Ohio Company’s Purchase

Due to the Indian threat, the subdivisions of the Purchase townships were not completed until December 1795.80 With General Anthony Wayne’s decisive victory over the Indians and the British at the Battle of Fallen Timbers, the surveying was completed in the field. A meeting was held on January 23, 1796, at which the Ohio Company Directors decided that the land was to be partitioned among the 817 shareholders present. On February 1, 1796 the Directors executed deeds of partition or allotment and all the tracts not disposed of were “assigned to Rufus Putnam and Benjamin Ives Gilman in trust to sell and dispose for the benefits of the proprietors of the Ohio Company.”81 The physical property of the Ohio Company was sold at a public auction. The blockhouses of Campus Martius were sold for $431. The southwest blockhouse was sold to Ichabod Nye for $150 and the northwest to Charles Greene for $128. The northeast blockhouse went to Colonel William Stacy for $83. General Rufus Putnam bought the southeast blockhouse for $70.82 All tools, houses, and furniture went to the highest bidder. On January 18 and 19 in 1796 the last drawing to complete the division of Company lands was prepared on the basis of every twenty-two shareholders drawing a complete township, less the five reserved lots. Township Four, Range XV served as a model for this division. One of the last acts of the Ohio Company was the appointment of a committee to lease the public squares of Marietta and to preserve the Great Mound.83 While the Ohio Company was directed by Congress to subdivide its Purchase according to the Land Act of 1785 with six mile square townships and thirty-six lots or sections, much diversity exists within the townships. Township 12, Range XV is a good example of the Company’s divergence from the Act of 1785. A careful study reveals that eleven lots or sections were subdivided into one hundred acre parcels. Nine lots or sections were subdivided into two hundred and fifty-five acre parcels. The five reserved lots or sections are seen in their entirety and so are eleven of the regular lots or sections for a total of thirty-six. This township also displays several of the two hundred and fifty-five acre parcels (these were supposed to be 262 acre parcels, Sixth Division) that have the same number. Note there are three parcels numbered twenty-six located adjacent to each other. This came about because the shareholder drew his Fifth Division, 640 acre lot and then his Sixth Division. He then could number his Sixth Division the same number as his original Fifth. This flawed numbering system has caused confusion ever since. The plats of the subdivision of the townships in the Ohio Company’s Purchase have confused today’s County Auditors to the point that they have imposed a perfect grid of thirtysix one-mile-square sections over the original morass to make their task easier. While these Auditor’s Sections are used for taxing purposes, they are not original subdivisions because 80. Hildreth, Pioneer History, “In January 1795, a party of surveyors was sent out with a guard of fifteen men to run the line between the fourteenth and fifteenth ranges.” Surveyor Jeffrey Mathewson completed this survey in 1795. p. 344 81. Peters, Ohio Lands and Their History. 82.  Manuscripts and Documents of the Ohio Company of Associates, Dawes Memorial Library, Series 1, Business Records, Folder 7, Item 2, Deed to Rufus Putnam January 15, 1796. 83. Hulbert, Records of the Proceedings of the Ohio Company, vol. I. 71

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

they were never surveyed in the field and are not legal. They should not be used by a surveyor for preparing legal descriptions! The original subdivisions are readily available for study at Marietta College. Today’s surveyor should research each township in the Ohio Company’s Purchase before going into that township. The odds are that it is unique to the Purchase. For example note that Township 2, Range VIII has no whole sections except the reserved ones. The rest of that township is composed of 160-acre lots, 8-acre lots, and 3-acre lots. This type of original land subdivision cannot be found anywhere else in the state of Ohio.

E pilogu e John Mathews was born in New Braintree, Massachusetts on December 18, 1765. As a teenager he served in the Continental Army under command of his uncle, Lt. Colonel Rufus Putnam. It was Putnam who introduced Mathews to Thomas Hutchins in 1786 as a young man “who had made considerable improvements to the art of surveying.” Mathews and his friend, Anselm Tupper, served with Winthrop Sargent on the survey of the Fifth Range until hostile Indians drove them from the field. John Mathews was one of the original forty-eight men who landed at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers in April 1788 with General Putnam. After finishing the Ohio Company’s surveys in 1791, Mathews was appointed superintendent of the French settlement at Gallipolis where he surveyed the town and operated a supply store for the Ohio Company.84 In 1797 Mathews received the contract to survey the twenty-five townships of the north middle district of the United States Military Tract from his uncle, then the Surveyor General of the United States. He was paid three dollars per mile surveyed in the field. Mathews and young Ebenezer Buckingham Jr. received a contract to survey townships in the Congress Lands East of the Scioto in 1798. Mathews completed the townships along the Scioto River but became confused as to the correct numbering and duplicated township numbers in Ranges 21 and 22. These townships became known as, “the Mathews Survey of Range 21” and “the Mathews Survey of Range 22” respectively. From 1800 to 1802, Mathews engaged in the locations of land warrants with Colonel Ebenezer Sproat. Mathews, along with his brother George, built the first floating mill on the Muskingum River at Zanestown in 1800. During ensuing heavy rains, the mill was washed down the river to Duncan Falls. In 1802, Mathews was sent back into the U.S. Military District by Putnam to correct surveys made by John G. Jackson and Captain Zacheus Biggs. In 1802, Mathews laid out the town of Coshocton with Ebenezer Buckingham and Gibson Rook.85 He returned to Zanesville and built Moxahala Mills on Jonathan’s Creek. 84.  John Mathews, “I have spent the winter in surveying the city lots of Gallipolis and the 2 acre lots adjacent.” March 20, 1791. S.P. Hildreth Collection, Dawes Memorial Library, Marietta College, vol. III, Item #12. 85.  Albert. A. Graham, History of Coshocton County, Ohio: Its Past and Present, 1740-1881 (Newark, Ohio: 1881), p. 411.

72

Chapter Two: The Ohio Company’s Purchase

John Mathews married Miss Sarah Woodbridge on May 19, 1803.86 She was the daughter of Judge Dudley Woodbridge of Marietta. They purchased a large tract of land on Moxahala Creek in Muskingum County and erected a large flouring mill. “Mathews became a scientific cultivator of the soil and an early propagator of the finest fruits.”87 The couple was blessed with three sons. Mathews became a successful large-scale farmer. In 1803 Mathews opened a supply store in Marietta. He purchased Joseph F. Monro’s trading post in Zanesville and continued its operation. The next year, Mathews partnered with Elnathan Schofield to open a dry goods store in New Lancaster. In 1803 Mathews and his brother, Dr. Increase Mathews, and cousin, Levi Whipple, purchased the lands across the Muskingum River from Zanesville and founded the town of Springfield, the name of which was later changed to Putnam. The town of Putnam flourished under their direction and rivaled Zanesville for many years. Mathews was elected to the Ohio House of Representatives in 1807 and was later elected to the Ohio Senate in 1820. John Mathews died October 31, 1828 and was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Putnam. Anselm Tupper was born October 11, 1763, the oldest son of General Benjamin Tupper of Easton, Massachusetts.88 Anselm rose to the rank of Lieutenant and Adjutant of the 6th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment by the war’s end. In 1786 young Tupper came west with his father and surveyed in the Seven Ranges for Captain Hutchins. Anselm Tupper was another of the original forty-eight who landed with Putnam in April 1788. His parents, General Benjamin Tupper and his wife Huldah, arrived in Marietta the next month. Anselm and Benjamin Tupper were original members of the Society of Cincinnati in Massachusetts. After surveying for the Ohio Company, Tupper became the first school teacher in Marietta. He was proficient in the classical languages and gifted in mathematics. He was a polished gentleman. Soon Anselm Tupper tired of frontier life and traveled down the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers on the ship called Orlando, which had been built in Marietta in 1803. Then he crossed the Atlantic and sailed the Mediterranean. He traveled through Italy, Greece, and Austria-Hungary. Anselm Tupper returned to Marietta several years later. There he died December 25, 1808 at age forty-five and was buried in the Mound Cemetery.89 Ebenezer Sproat was born in Middleborough, Massachusetts in 1752. He received a good education and was prepared to become a surveyor. He entered the war as a Captain of the 10th Massachusetts and soon rose to the rank of Major. He became a favorite of his fellow officers and private soldiers for his pleasant and agreeable manners and cheerful disposition. He served as Colonel of the 2nd Massachusetts Infantry later in the war. Sproat led his troops 86.  Julia Perkins Cutler, The Founders of Ohio (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke and Company, 1888). 87.  John Mathews’ Journal, p. 179, Dawes Memorial Library, Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio. 88.  William I. Chaffin, The History of Easton, Massachusetts (Cambridge, MA: John Wilson & Son, 1886). 89.  Mound Cemetery in Marietta surrounds the Great Mound, Conus, built by the Mound Builders. It contains the graves of “more officers of the Revolution than any other place in the United States.” DAR, American Monthly, vol. 16 (Jan.–June, 1900) p. 329.

73

Figure 2-14. The Ohio Company’s method of subdivision is the most unique and complicated of all the various systems in the State of Ohio. Here in Township 1, Range XI and Township 1, Range XII only reserved sections 11 and 16 resemble the Land Act of 1785.

74

Chapter Two: The Ohio Company’s Purchase

with gallantry and courage at the battles of Trenton, Princeton, and Monmouth, New Jersey. Colonel Sproat excelled in his duties and was known as the most complete disciplinarian in the brigade. For this he was promoted to brigade-inspector by General Baron Von Steuben.90 After the war, Sproat became a successful surveyor in Providence, Rhode Island. There he married Catherine Whipple, the daughter of Commander Abraham Whipple. In 1786, Colonel Sproat was appointed to represent Rhode Island as a surveyor in the service of Thomas Hutchins to survey the Seven Ranges. Colonel Sproat was the surveyor of the Fourth Range. He was one of the original forty-eight who landed with General Putnam in April 1788. After the Ohio Company surveys were completed, Governor Arthur St. Clair commissioned Sproat, as the Sheriff of Washington County, which at that time was about half the size of the future state. “Colonel Sproat, in full military uniform with drawn saber and carrying the wand of his office, led the parade of the first court ever held in the Northwest Territory. The march began at the Point and made its way to the northwest blockhouse at Campus Martius. Behind the Sheriff marched the three judges, the governor, and the secretary of the territory. It was an august spectacle concluded with great dignity and decorum.”91 “Then followed the Sheriff’s proclamation: ‘O yes! A court is open for the administration of even handed justice to the poor and the rich, to the guilty and the innocent, without respect of persons; none to be punished without trial by their peers, and in pursuance of the law and evidence in the case.’ ”92 Sproat held the office of Sheriff of Washington County for fourteen years as well as rank of Colonel of the militia. Colonel Sproat rode some of the finest horses in the Territory and always had two or three large white dogs which were intensely loyal to him. Colonel Sproat was a 6 feet 4 inches tall, majestic looking man who had a booming voice and a commanding appearance. He was a kind and thoughtful man in contrast to his rugged and powerful appearance. He was a federalist of the old school, warmly attached to his country and to the precepts taught by his venerated commander, General Washington. The Indians visited the new settlement to see the Bostons, as they called them, and to exchange their pelts and meat with the traders at Fort Harmar. The tall commanding appearance of Colonel Sproat quickly attracted their attention. They called him Hetuck which meant the Big Buckeye.93 Samuel Hildreth believed Sproat was the first white man called a Buckeye by the Indians. Sproat’s family, consisting of his wife Catherine and daughter, Sarah, arrived in Marietta with Commander Whipple and his wife Sarah in 1789. They moved into Sproat’s small cabin at the Point. Sproat later built a large frame house for his family at the corner of Put90.  James Grant Wilson, ed., Appleton’s Cyclopedia of American Biography, Six Volumes (New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1889). 91.  Samuel Prescott Hildreth, Biographical and Historical Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio (Cincinnati: H. W. Derby & Co., 1852), p.237. 92. Summers, History of Marietta, p. 68. 93. Hildreth, Biographical and Historical Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio, p. 236.

75

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

nam and Front Streets.94 When the Indians threatened the town, Sproat secured his family in the Point Garrison with the other pioneers. Ebenezer Sproat, in apparent good health, died suddenly in February 1805. The cause of death is not known. Colonel Sproat was buried in Marietta’s Mound Cemetery with other Revolutionary War veterans. Major Anselm Tupper and General Benjamin Tupper were later buried near Colonel Sproat. Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs of Middletown, Connecticut was born December 17, 1740. He was one of thirteen children. His father was a member of the Connecticut General Assembly. In 1772, Governor Trumbull commissioned Meigs to the rank of Lieutenant in the Sixth Connecticut Regiment. After the battle of Lexington, Meigs marched his company swiftly to the defense of Boston. He was promoted through the ranks to Captain and then Major of Colonel Enos’ regiment. This regiment, under the overall command of Colonel Arnold, served in the Americans’ ill-fated attack on Canada during December 1775. Meigs was captured scaling the northern wall of Quebec. He was one of the 426 Americans captured in the abortive attempt to drive the British from their last stronghold in Canada. He was exchanged in January 1777 and in May of that year led the famous Meigs’ Raid against the British navy in Sag Harbor, New York. With two hundred men in thirteen whaleboats, he crossed Long Island Sound at midnight. The Americans rowed through the British warships undetected and attacked the garrison at Sag Harbor. They captured sixty-five British prisoners and burnt tenBritish ships to the waterline without losing a single American life. This expedition traveled almost one hundred miles in eighteen hours. Congress awarded Meigs an elegant sword for his daring leadership. Colonel Meigs commanded the Sixth Connecticut Regiment in 1779. Under the leadership of General Anthony Wayne, the Continentals captured the British garrison at Stony Point on the Hudson in a daring night attack. Meigs played an important role in suppressing the mutiny of Connecticut troops in 1780 and for this he received a personal note of thanks from General Washington. His regiment was one of the first sent by General Washington to the defense of West Point after Arnold’s treason was discovered in September1780.95 Meigs was appointed a surveyor for the Ohio Company on November 23, 1787. He was another of the original forty-eight who landed with Putnam. Meigs drew up a code of conduct that the settlers were to live by until the territorial judges arrived. After the Ohio Company surveys were completed, Meigs served as a judge of the Court of Quarter Sessions and clerk of the Court of Common Pleas for Washington County. In May 1801 at the age of sixty-one, Meigs accepted a dual appointment as Cherokee Indian Agent and Agent of the War Department in the state of Tennessee. With deep sym94. Summers, History of Marietta, Col. Sproat’s house was located near the Muskingum River. It was a fine specimen of New England architecture and very credible to the period in which it was built. It was later owned by Captain Daniel Green. 95.  Mark M. Boatner III, Encyclopedia of the American Revolution (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1966), p. 699. 76

Chapter Two: The Ohio Company’s Purchase

pathy for their problems, Meigs worked for the good of the Cherokees who nicknamed him “The White Path.” In January 1823 he moved into his tent so that an elderly chief who was visiting him could use his comfortable house. As a result, Meigs contracted pneumonia and died January 28 at age eighty-two. He was buried in the Old Garrison Cemetery overlooking the confluence of the Tennessee and the Hiwassee Rivers. He was a good citizen, a staunch patriot, and a gallant soldier.96 Rufus Putnam was truly, a man for his times. He was born April 9, 1738 in Sutton, Massachusetts. Seven years later, his father died and his mother sent him to live with his grandfather. At age fourteen, he chose to live with his brother-in-law Jonathan Dudley. Dudley did not see to the education of the young lad so Putnam, being intelligent and inquisitive, taught himself to read. He studied algebra and trigonometry on his own and saw to his own education. At the age of sixteen, he apprenticed himself to Daniel Matthews as a millwright. At age nineteen, Putnam joined the British army and fought in the French and Indian War. After returning home, he lobbied the English government to provide its veterans of the war with land bounties in the west along the Mississippi River. His request was denied by the English who feared conflict with the Indians if such a plan was put into action. After the war, Putnam relocated to New Braintree, Massachusetts where he worked as a millwright from 1761 to 1768. During this time he read all that he could about geography, mathematics, and surveying. In 1769 Putnam took up farming and surveying. He became quite successful as a surveyor. Putnam married Elizabeth Ayers in 1761 but she died in 1762 during childbirth. After her death, he married Persis Rice in 1765. Together they had eight children: Elizabeth born 1765, Persis born 1767, Susanna born 1768, Abigail born 1770, William Rufus born 1771, Franklin born 1774, Edwin born 1776, Patty born 1777, and Catherine born 1778. When the war with England broke out in 1775, Putnam enlisted in the Massachusetts militia. Later the militia was incorporated into the Continental Army and Putnam became an assistant engineer and was commissioned Lt. Colonel. Early in 1776, it was Putnam’s plan that found its way to Colonel Henry Knox and then to General George Washington. His plan was to build fortifications elsewhere and then move them during the night to Dorchester Heights overlooking Boston and the British army. Washington greatly favored this plan and developed a favorable opinion of Putnam after the British abandoned Boston. Later that year, the Continental Army occupied Long Island. General Washington appointed Putnam Chief of Engineers with the rank of Colonel. Putnam marked out the defensive line of fortifications to resist the British advance. Fort Putnam, which was named for him, was nearly three miles from Fort Defiance. This line could not hold against the overwhelming British forces and General Washington was forced to abandon Long Island. 96.  Meigs H. Whales, “A Historical Sketch of Return Jonathan Meigs, A Revolutionary Hero of Connecticut.” A paper read before the Jeremiah Wadsworth Branch, Sons of the American Revolution on April 4, 1917.

77

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

The Continental Congress in December 1776 rejected Putnam’s suggestion to establish a permanent Corps of Engineers, therefore Putnam resigned. He reenlisted in the Northern Army under command of Major General Horatio Gates and commanded a regiment skillfully at the Battle of Saratoga. He was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General. In 1778, Putnam oversaw the construction of Fort Putnam at West Point on the Hudson River. Putnam was with Major General Anthony Wayne by July 1779 and served courageously in the capture of the British garrison at Stony Point, New York. “As a soldier he was brave and resourceful, but he was neither a great strategist nor an eminent military engineer. In the latter field as in his surveying in civil life, he was limited by his lack of education, particularly in mathematics.”97 After the war in 1783, Putnam helped draft the Newburgh Petition which he framed as chairman of a board of officers. Putnam sent the Petition to General Washington for his assistance in the matter. The petition urged the new Continental Congress to pay its veterans with land grants in the Ohio Country. Two hundred and eighty-three officers signed the Petition of the Officers in the Continental Line. The disheartened and disillusioned men demanded payment immediately. Only General George Washington with his unique leadership abilities and, in a surprising way, a pair of spectacles was able to prevent an uprising of his former officers. The General had grown old and gray in his long years of service to his country and now needed reading glasses. When he pulled the glasses from his vest and looked at his officers, they instantly understood how much he had given. They were brought to tears and the uprising ended then and there.98 In 1786 General Putnam, General Benjamin Tupper, General Samuel Holden Parsons, General James Mitchell Varnum, and other former officers of the army from Massachusetts formed The Ohio Company of Associates. The meetings were held at the Bunch of Grapes Tavern in Boston. Major Winthrop Sargent became secretary of the Company. He volunteered to go west as a surveyor for Thomas Hutchins in the first surveys of the Ohio Country in order to scout the new land. By December 1787 forty-eight men had been selected because of their skills, hardiness and bravery to venture forth to the Ohio. They cut trails through the mountain forests during an unusually bitter winter and made their way to Sumrill’s Ferry on the Youghiogheny River in western Pennsylvania. There, under Putnam’s leadership, the Ohio Company shipbuilders constructed the two large boats. Putnam was a natural leader of men and was credited with the success of the pioneers from New England as they sailed down the Youghiogheny to the Monongahela River. As they passed Fort Pitt on the Adventure (later renamed the Mayflower), the Adelphia, and three large log canoes carrying the rest of the forty-eight men, cheers went up from the soldiers and the fort’s big guns were fired in celebration. General Lafayette, who fought with the Americans during the war, later visited Marietta and described these officers and pioneers as “the bravest of the brave, better men never lived.”99 General Washington wrote 97.  Dictionary of American Biography, 21 Vols. (New York, 1943). 98.  Douglas Southall Freeman, Washington (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1968), pp. 500–501. 99.  Julia Perkins Cutler, Life and Times of Ephraim Cutler (Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Company, 1890). 78

Chapter Two: The Ohio Company’s Purchase

in June 1788, “No colony in America was ever settled under such favorable auspices as that which has just commenced at the Muskingum. Information, property, strength will be its characteristics. I have known many of the settlers personally, and there never were men better calculated to promote the welfare of such a community.”100 These original forty-eight, as they came to be known, arrived at the Muskingum River on April 7, 1788. Due to limbs of the trees hanging low from a recent heavy rain, the little flotilla passed the mouth of the Muskingum River. It was not until the men saw Fort Harmar that they knew where they were. Soldiers from the fort helped pull the boats back up the river to the mouth of the Muskingum. “Can too much be said in praise of the noble heroes who opened to settlement the Great Northwest Territory? These men had been well trained in army life and discipline. They were anxious to take this country as payment due them for their military service. They were men who had fought valiantly to preserve the principles of their government and were ready for other great achievements. They were men who had assisted in making this territory a part of the United States and had, in great measure, assisted in the formation and adoption of the Ordinance of 1787 which was to govern it. Indeed, a better company of men could scarcely have been selected than those who were directed by General Putnam.”101 From the first day, these men sought to recreate New England culture and society in the new territory. They brought law and education with them and expected to create an orderly way of life on the Ohio River. Work began immediately on clearing the land and planting corn. The surveyors, with their assistants, began dragging chains across the land that would become the town of Marietta. Anselm Tupper and Colonel Meigs surveyed the eight-acre lots. Colonel Sproat and John Mathews chained up Israel Ludlow’s Seventh Range line to the northwest corner of Township No. 2. From that corner they ran a line westerly which served as a control line for the whole purchase. Then General Putnam directed the three-acre lots around the new town to be measured and marked. General Putnam was a natural to become the Superintendent of Surveys for the Ohio Company. His contract system of dealing with his deputy surveyors was later adopted by the federal government for the survey of the Public Lands of the United States. In 1790 President George Washington appointed Rufus Putnam as a Territorial Judge. Putnam also served as a Brigadier General during the Indian Wars. During June and July 1792, Putnam, on behalf of the United States and Secretary of War, Henry Knox, conducted peace talks with the Wabash Indians at Post Vincennes.102 These talks provided time for General Anthony Wayne to train and discipline his new army. 100.  Jared Sparks, The Writings of George Washington; Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts, vol. IX (Boston: American Stationers’ Company, 1837), p. 385. 101. Summers, History of Marietta, pp. 49–50. 102.  Rufus Putnam’s speech to the Sachems and Warriors of the tribes inhabiting the Miami or Tawa River and the waters of the Wabash River, June 8, 1792, Rufus Putnam Papers, Marietta College Library.

79

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

In 1796 General Putnam became the first Surveyor General of the United States. Under his leadership, the surveying of the Northwest Territory flourished. Although not gifted and educated in mathematics, Putnam was respected and admired by his deputy surveyors. Putnam was pragmatic and sought solutions that were intended to push the surveying toward completion, as time was of the essence. Even though he was looked down upon by his successor, Jared Mansfield, as incompetent and too old for the job, Putnam’s record of production far outshines Professor Mansfield’s. It is truly ironic that this great man who helped build the Northwest Territory was against statehood for Ohio. Putnam, like his friend, Governor St. Clair, was a Federalist as were George Washington and John Adams. The Revolution of 1800, as Jefferson termed it, occurred and the Federalists were swept from power. They were replaced by the Jeffersonian Democratic Republicans who favored smaller government and rule by the common man, not by the New England elites. St. Clair had ruled the Territory with a heavy hand like a colony that was unable to govern itself. When St. Clair opposed statehood for Ohio in 1802, President Jefferson at Senator Thomas Worthington’s urging removed him as Territorial Governor. St. Clair returned to his home near Ft. Ligonier, Pennsylvania with his daughter Louisa.103 After fifteen years as Governor of the Northwest Territory, his health had deteriorated and his wealth was gone. The sheriff seized his property to satisfy creditors, specifically James O’Hara, who served as Quartermaster for St. Clair’s army in 1791. When the federal funds for the expedition were exhausted, St. Clair gave his bond to O’Hara to purchase the army’s supplies. After the Indian war, Congress would not make good on St. Clair’s bond. O’Hara brought suit against St. Clair and won. Arthur St. Clair died in poverty on August 31, 1818. The last champion of Federalism in the Territory was Surveyor General Putnam. If the new state was to have a westerly boundary of a line due north from the mouth of the Great Miami River where it emptied into the Ohio River, Marietta would be lost as a dominant center of power. Therefore, St. Clair and Putnam proposed the dividing line should be a line ten miles west of the mouth of the Scioto River. Lands east of this dividing line would be known as the state of Washington. After losing the struggle for statehood to the Virginians at Chillicothe led by Worthington, Tiffin and McArthur along with Jefferson’s victory in 1800, St. Clair’s and Putnam’s positions were untenable. On September 21, 1803 Jefferson fired him in a letter from Albert Gallatin. Putnam responded as a gentleman and helped his successor Jared Mansfield, when the latter and his wife arrived in Marietta. After his dismissal by President Jefferson, Putnam turned his attention to higher education. From that time on, he considered himself to be a political martyr. He worked to build the Muskingum Academy which later became Marietta College in 1835. To help create the Muskingum Academy, shares were sold at ten dollars per share. Rufus Putnam was by far the 103.  Randolph Chandler Downes, “Thomas Jefferson and the Removal of Governor St. Clair in 1802” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Publication, vol. 36, pp. 62–77.

80

Chapter Two: The Ohio Company’s Purchase

largest shareholder with three hundred dollars invested. Colonel Ebenezer Sproat was next on the list of investors with forty dollars of shares. During the summer of 1800, Putnam, Benjamin Ives Gilman, and Jonathan Stone surveyed the town of Athens.104 These three men were accompanied by surveyor Levi Whipple, several surveying assistants, and a guard of fifteen militia men.105 “In a fleet of canoes, propelled by the power of setting-poles against the swift and narrow channel of the Great Hockhocking, accompanied by armed guards against the lurking savages and carrying with them pork, beans and hard tack that made up their rough fare, the committee of old veterans of two wars proceeded to fix with compass and chain the boundaries of the university lands. There was little polish or culture in this undertaking.”106 An act of the Legislature passed in 1799, perpetually reserved two townships “numbered eight and nine in the fourteenth range of townships in the grant of land made by Congress to the Ohio Company of Associates for the use and benefit of a university.” Section Two of this act named the college The American Western University. Among the trustees named were the Honorable Rufus Putnam, Colonel Return Jonathan Meigs, and Colonel Ebenezer Sproat.107 The Ohio legislature passed an act in February 1804 which changed the name and established Ohio University. On June 4, Governor Edward Tiffin notified Judge Elijah Backus, General Putnam, Judge Dudley Woodbridge, and Reverend Daniel Story, all of Marietta, Reverend James Kilbourne of Worthington, and Reverend Samuel Carpenter of Lancaster of their appointments as trustees of Ohio University. Tiffin rode on horseback from Chillicothe through the hills of Ross and Washington Counties for a distance of sixty miles to Dr. Eliphaz Perkins’ house for the first meeting of the trustees of the university.108 Dr. Perkins lived in a large log cabin on what is now State Street in Athens. Captain John Chandler and Captain Silas Bingham lived nearby. When the lots of the new town were sold on November 5, 1804, Dr. Perkins purchased Lot No. 26 for thirty dollars. Rufus Putnam bought Lot No. 29 for fifty-nine dollars and Lot No. 40 for twenty dollars. A second sale of lots, mostly those lots that were not paid for and claimed after the first sale, was held on November 25, 1806. Judge Dudley Woodbridge bought Lots 40 and 42 for ten dollars each. Rufus Putnam purchased Lots Nos. 25 and 34 for sixteen dollars each and Lot No. 23 for ten dollars. Putnam was the largest landholder in the new town of Athens. 104. Walker, History of Athens County, Ohio and Incidentally of the Ohio Company and the First Settlement of the State at Marietta, p. 125. Approved by Governor Arthur St. Clair, this act called for laying off a town plat which would contain a square for the college, also lots suitable for house lots and gardens for a president, professors, or tutors. 105.  Whipple’s plat entitled “Plat of a Town without Lots Etc. __Situate in the Ninth Township & fourteenth Range in the Ohio Company Purchase, made in pursuance of a resolve of the Legislature of the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, passed December 18, 1799,” Slack Research Collections, Marietta College Library, Series 4, Oversize Drawer 03, Item 03_001. 106.  Clement L. Martzolff, “Ohio University-the Historic College of the Old Northwest”, Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society publication, vol. 19, p. 419. 107. Peters, Legal History of the Ohio University, Athens, Ohio, p. 93. 108.  Ibid., p. 422. 81

Figure 2-15

82

Chapter Two: The Ohio Company’s Purchase

The site of the proposed institution of higher learning was a densely covered poplar forest. Large numbers of wild turkeys and bears roamed the forest and buffalo grazed along the Hockhocking River.109 The trustees lodged with Dr. Perkins and were served bear meat for their meals by their host. General Putnam served as a trustee of Ohio University for twenty years. He helped establish and direct the curriculum which compared favorably with that of the best eastern schools. Each morning the students were required to assemble at sunrise for morning prayers. The course of study included the English, Latin and, Greek languages, mathematics, rhetoric, logic, geography, and natural and moral philosophy. How very ironic that this humble, self-taught man with no formal schooling became a prominent leader of higher education on the western frontier. Putnam lost his wife of thirty-five years, Persis, in 1800. His last years were made comfortable and secure by his daughter, Elizabeth and his son, William Rufus. While living with his daughter, he wrote his memoirs. “Putnam tells the story of his life modestly. He makes no claim for himself, except of having served his country faithfully to the satisfaction and with respect of his superiors, especially of his great leader Washington.”110 He died May 4, 1824 in Marietta. Rufus Putnam was eighty-six years old. He had chosen to be buried as a humble follower of Christ rather than the more ostentatious forms of military or Masonic fraternity services. Putnam was buried in the Mound Cemetery near the Great Mound in Marietta, which he helped to preserve. General Benjamin Tupper wrote of his good friend: “Putnam was hospitable and kind without ostentation and without effort. He displayed in these remote regions the grandeur, real and intrinsic, of those immortal men who achieved our revolution. He has passed away. But the memory of really good and great men like General Putnam will remain as long as plenty, independence and comfort shall prevail on the shores of the Ohio.”111 “Between 1788 and 1803, Rufus Putnam and his deputy surveyors laid out the foundations of American civilization in the Old Northwest Territory. They came into a wild and untamed wilderness and they left behind a land crisscrossed by a grid of lines ready for an orderly and systematic settlement. Putnam and his deputies surveyed and marked over thirteen thousand miles of boundary lines.”112 President George Washington was correct in his assessment of Rufus Putnam. Washington thought him to be “the best man to lead the settlement of the Western Frontier.”113 109.  Martin R. Andrews, The History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio and Its Representative Citizens (Chicago: Biographical Publishing Company, 1902), p. 90, “In the winter of 1792, Hamilton Kerr and Peter Neiswanger killed six or seven buffaloes on Duck Creek near Cedar Narrows. They were fat and a fine quality of meat.” 110.  Rowena Buell, The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam and Certain Official Papers and Correspondence (Marietta: National Society of the Colonial Dames of America, 1903), p. xxxv, from a speech made by the Honorable George Hoar. 111. Walker., History of Athens County, Ohio and Incidentally of the Ohio Land Company and the First Settlement of the State at Marietta, pp. 42–43. 112. Ernst, With Compass and Chain, p. 204. 113. Sparks, The Writings of George Washington; Being His Correspondence, Addresses, Messages and Other Papers, Official and Private, Selected and Published from the Original Manuscripts, vol. XII. 83

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

The ancient sage who penned the following words could have been writing of Putnam when he wrote: “There are men who make maps and influence history but there is a higher level of men who make history and influence maps.” Rufus Putnam did both.

Research Notes With each township being unique, it is imperative to research the original plats in the “Manuscripts and Documents of the Ohio Company of Associates and the “Ohio Company Surveyors Field Notes” in the Slack Research Collections of Dawes Memorial Library, Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio. For a surveyor to do less would constitute negligence on his part. The field notes are indexed by range and township in boxes and the original surveyor’s name. Plats, maps, and drawings are in Series IV in Box 1 which is divided into folders. Oversized plats are in drawers one through four. The survey books contain plats of land in Ranges 8 through 16 of the Purchase and the allotments of the Donation Tract. Also to be found in this collection are “The Rufus Putnam Papers,” which cover the General’s work as Superintendent of Surveys for the Ohio Company as well as records of his duties as Surveyor General of the United States from 1796 to 1803. Some plats and field notes of the Ohio Company’s Purchase can be found at the Ohio Historical Society, Series 4601, Historical Records of the State Auditor, Reels GR 8421 and GR 8423. Archer B. Hulbert’s Records of the Ohio Company Volumes I and II may also be found there as well as at the Dawes Memorial Library, Marietta College, in Marietta, Ohio. Israel Ludlow’s boundary survey of the 1,500,000 acre purchase of 1791 can be found in the National Archives, Cartographic Records Branch, Records of the G.L.O., Old Map File, Record Group 49. Many good books have been written about this time period in Ohio history, most notably: Samuel P. Hildreth, Pioneer History: Being an Account of the First Examinations of the Ohio Valley and the Early Settlement of the Northwest Territory, Cincinnati, Derby and Co., 1848. Samuel P. Hildreth, Biographical and Historical Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of Ohio, Cincinnati: H. W. Derby and Company Publishers, 1852. Martin R. Andrews, History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio and its Representative Citizens, Chicago: Biographical Publishing Company, 1842. Charles S. Hall, Life and Letters of Samuel Holden Parsons, Major General in the Continental Army and Chief Judge of the Northwestern Territory 1787-1789, Binghamton, N.Y.: Otseningo Publishing Co., 1905. William Henry Smith, The Life and Public Service of Arthur St. Clair with His Correspondence and Other Papers, 2 Vols. Cincinnati, Clarke and Co., 1882. Rowena Buell, The Memoirs of Rufus Putnam and Certain Official Papers and Correspondence, Boston, Houghton, Mifflin and Co., 1903. F. M. McDonnell, Book of Marietta, Being a Condensed, Accurate and Reliable Record of the Important Events in the History of the City of Marietta, in the State of Ohio, from the Time of Its Earliest Settlement by the First Pioneers of the Ohio Land Company on April 7th, 1788, Marietta, Ohio: 1906. Thomas J. Summers, History of Marietta, Marietta: The Leader Publishing Company, 1903. Mary Cone, The Life of Rufus Putnam with Extracts from His Journal and an Account of the First Settlement in Ohio, Cleveland: W.W. Williams Co., 1886. Cornelius E. Dickinson, A History of Belpre, Washington County, Ohio, Parkersburg: Globe Printing Company, 1920. Julia Perkins Cutler, Life and Times of Ephraim Cutler Prepared from his Journals and Correspondence, Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Company, 1890. William Parker Cutler and Julia Perkins Cutler, Life, Journals and Correspondence of Rev. Manasseh Cutler, LLD, Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & company, 1888. “Oration Delivered by George F. Hoar, of Massachusetts April 7, 1888 at the Celebration of the Centennial of the Founding of the Northwest at Marietta, Ohio,” Washington DC: Judd & Detweiler Printers, 1888. Charles M. Walker, History of Athens County, Ohio and Incidentally of the Ohio Land Company and the First Settlement in the State at Marietta, Cincinnati: Robert Clarke & Co., 1869. An excellent source for the history of The Ohio Company of Associates is Archer B. Hulbert, The Records of the Original Proceedings of the Ohio Company, 2 Volumes, Marietta Historical Commission, Marietta, 1917.

84

Chapter Three: The Donation Tract Eighteen Allotments Featuring 100 Acre Lots The beautiful Muskingum River gently winds its way through the hills of southeastern Ohio from Coshocton to Marietta. In 1791 the Delaware and Wyandot Indians used these waters to send war parties in canoes to attack the settlements of the Ohio Company’s Purchase. When General Josiah Harmar moved the United States Army from Fort Harmar on the Muskingum River to Fort Washington near Cincinnati, the whole Purchase was alarmed and vulnerable. Demands for protection immediately were sent to Congress. After the Big Bottom Massacre in January 1791, Congress acted, not by sending more troops but by donating 100,000 acres to men who would settle along the Muskingum River. Each man had to live on the 100 acre tract for a period of five years and be willing to defend against the Indians whenever they ventured southeasterly toward Marietta. This act created a militia, which was well armed and located in the place where it was most needed. It also created a geographical buffer zone between the Indians and the settlers. The bravest of the brave accepted this offer and soon 186 resolute men stood between Marietta and the Indians. In 1791 Israel Ludlow ran the “Ludlow Line” westerly from the Seventh Range of townships to the westerly line of the Seventeenth Range. Ludlow began on the westerly line of the Seventh Range, 691 chains, 48 links north of the Ohio River. He then surveyed west 60 miles or ten ranges of townships, set a post and turned southerly to the Ohio. As the Ohio Company surveyors measured northerly from their east and west line, they found one complete township and another fractional township south of this Ludlow Line. The Donation Tract of April 21, 1792 as described by Congress was to be located in the northeasterly part of the Ohio Company’s Purchase but was not to be owned by the Company because of its monetary problem. The Ohio Company surveyors had already surveyed this land prior to 1792 and were in the process of subdividing the townships into 100-acre lots or Fifth Divisions when Congress acted. Therefore, township and range lines were in place by 1792 and can be seen on the maps of the Donation Tract. The description of this tract by Congress stated, “ Beginning on the westerly boundary line of the Seventh Range of townships at the northeast corner of the seven hundred and fifty thousand acre tract; thence running north to Ludlow’s line surveyed by Israel Ludlow at the boundary of the original purchase of 1,500,000 acres; thence along that line westerly to the tract containing two hundred and fourteen thousand and eighty-five acres; thence south to the boundary of the seven hundred and fifty thousand acre tract; thence along that boundary to the place of beginning.”1 This tract was to be approximately twenty-one miles long and eight miles wide and to contain 100,000 acres. 1.  Thomas Jefferson Summers, The History of Marietta (Marietta, Ohio, The Leader Publishing Co, 1903).

85

Figure 3-1

86

Chapter Three: The Donation Tract

The Directors of the Ohio Company were appointed trustees of the Donation Tract. General Putnam was appointed the surveyor of the lands and superintendent of the Donation Tract. All deeds were made out by him. In 1792 Captain Jonathan Stone, William R. Putnam, and Joseph Woods were sworn in as Ohio Company surveyors to survey the tract. When enough men were assembled in Marietta to form a company, an allotment was surveyed and settlement began. Such was the case of those poor unfortunate souls who formed the Big Bottom Allotment and perished by the tomahawk early in 1791. A total of eighteen allotments were created and surveyed by the Ohio Company. Some of the lots contained 100 acres and some did not. If the lot was short of 100 acres, the settler was given more land elsewhere in the allotment. When reading the list of owners of the lots in the tract, it is readily apparent that many of the owners were leaders of the Ohio Company who never settled on these lots. Some of the frontier’s most famous Indian fighters did settle here. Locked and loaded, they waited for those canoes to come down the Muskingum. Stockades were hastily erected at Wolf Creek Mills and Waterford. A three-sided fort known as Fort Frye was constructed down river from Waterford.2 Once again, river frontage was of prime importance and many New England style river lots can be seen on the map of the Donation Tract. Creeks such as Duck Creek, Rainbow Creek, New Year’s Creek, Bear Creek, Cats Creek, Big Run, Wolf Creek, Olive Green Creek, and Meigs Creek were settled first. Since the description of the Donation Tract was dependent upon the description of the Second Ohio Company Purchase of 214,085 acres, the western boundary of the Donation Tract could not be run until the latter was surveyed. Therefore, it was not until 1794 that the western line was delineated by Captain Jonathan Stone. In his notes Stone wrote, Monday Dec. 15, 1794, 20 miles, 64 chains, 94 links west in Ludlow’s Line, set a post for the northwest corner of the Donation Tract___ 1st mile South___ . . .  8th mile South, 8 miles, 34 chains, intersected the east & west line, erected  monuments as they are noted in the Notes of that line_blazed several trees  One marked, “JS 1794 SWC”, Dec. 30th, 1794, arrived in Marietta3

The legal description of the 214,085 acre tract as written by Congress and surveyed by Captain Stone reads, “Beginning on the Ohio River upon the western boundary line of the Fifteenth Range of townships (opposite the mouth of the Guyandotte); thence running northerly to a point about one mile north of the south line of Township number Seven; thence westerly to the western boundary of the Sixteenth Range; thence northerly to the north line of Township number Thirteen; thence easterly to a point about one mile east 2.  This fort constructed near the mouth of Olive Green Creek by Captain William Gray, Major Phinehas Colburn, Major John White, and Judge Gilbert Devol provided sanctuary for the settlers. School, taught by Joseph Frye and Joseph Lyler, was held in one of the blockhouses. Reverend Story conducted Sunday services in the same blockhouse. “Magazine of Western History,” Vol. VII (Cleveland: Williams Publishing, 1887). 3.  Ohio Company Surveyor’s Field Notes, Box 2, Envelope 14, Marietta College Library, DRC Collection.

87

Figure 3-2. Map showing the subdivision of the Donation Tract into 18 Allotments and the 100 acre Lots in each Allotment.

88

Chapter Three: The Donation Tract

of the west boundary of the Eleventh Range; thence north four miles; thence east to the western boundary of the Seventh Range; thence south along that line to the Ohio; thence along the Ohio to the place of beginning.”4 Note that this description includes not only the 214,085 acre tract (Second Purchase) but also all of the 750,000 acre tract (the First Purchase) as well as the 100,000 acre Donation Tract. A deed written in March 1794 conveying a one hundred acre tract to Eleazer Bullard of Marietta begins, To all whom these Presents shall come: BE IT KNOWN that we Rufus Putnam, Manasseh Cutler, Griffin Greene and Robert Oliver by virtue of the powers and in execution of the trust reposed in us by one Letter Patent executed by the PRESIDENT of the United States, under the Great Seal, bearing the date of the tenth of May, in the year of our Lord, one thousand seven hundred and ninety two, whereby one hundred thousand acres of land is granted and conveyed to us, our heirs and assigns in trust, for the purposes expressed in said patent, DO hereby grant and convey to Eleazer Bullard of Marietta in Washington County, territory of the United States, north-west of the river Ohio, one hundred acres of land and is butted and bounded as follows, Beginning at a stake, one chain north of the line between Lots 4 & 5 in the Third Township of the Ninth Range Surveyed agreeably to the Ordinance of Congress of May 20th, 1785 ___

The description goes around the one hundred acre tract and is signed by the four trustees and Return Jonathan Meigs as Justice of the Peace of Washington County. Some of the one-hundred-acre lots in the eighteen allotments had been surveyed as part of the subdivision of the townships in Ranges VIII, IX, X and part of XI. Therefore deeds written by the Trustees placed some lots in a township and range. Three large tracts, one for 3736.22 acres, one for 2189.74 acres and one for 528.5 acres, were never granted and were reverted back to the United States in 1818. Because there was no reservation in the Donation Tract for school lands, Congress selected Section 8 in each of the four townships south of the Tract in 1805 for the support of education. The final subdivision of the Donation Tract occurred in 1818. That year Surveyor General Edward Tiffin inquired of Rufus Putnam how much land of the 100,000 acre tract had not been granted. Putnam responded on April 16 in a letter to Tiffin in which he stated that “the Lands remaining ungranted are Situate as follows: in the Eighth Range lying in two tracts—2249.74 acres; in the Ninth Range lying in one tract—29 acres; in the Tenth Range lying in one tract—25 acres; in the Eleventh Range lying in two tracts—2798.10 acres. Total of 5101.84 acres.”5 Tiffin sent deputy surveyors Price F. Kellogg and Joseph Frances to subdivide the remaining Donation Tract lands later that year.6 With its eighteen allotments and its numbered lots, the Donation Tract is an original Ohio Land Subdivision. Although never owned by the Ohio Company it is very similar to the Ohio Company’s Second Purchase. 4. Summers, The History of Marietta (Marietta, Ohio, The Leader Publishing Co., 1903). 5.  Letters Sent by the Surveyor General of the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, M 477, Reel No. 1, p. 141, National Archives. 6.  Land Records of the State Auditor, Series 4601, Ohio Historical Society, Reel GR 8430, Subdivision 4.

89

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

Research Notes Plats and field notes of all eighteen allotments are available at the Dawes Memorial Library, Special Collections, Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio. The Ohio Historical Society in Columbus has copies of the plats but no field notes of the original surveyors. These plats do not show measured distances on them. They can be found on Reel GR 8421, Series 4601, Land Records of the State Auditor, Historical Records in the microfilm reading room. Elizabeth T. Owen authored Fort Frye on the Muskingum River in Beverly, Ohio in 1932. H. E. Frye of Lowell, Ohio, contributed Waterford & Fort Frye on the Muskingum in the Old Northwest Territory in 1938. “The Garrison at Waterford, 1791” can be found in the S.P. Hildreth Collection, Vol. # 1, Item # 315 and Vol. #1, Item # 337, Dawes Memorial Library, Marietta College, Marietta, Ohio.

90

Figure 3-3

91

Plan of Fort Frye on the Muskingum 1. A Block house, 20 ft. square and two stories tall 2. Large Block house 3. Bastion higher than the Block house 4. Great double gate 5. Sally port 6. Block house, 20 ft. square and two stories tall 7. Small gate to get water from the river 8. One and two story houses with roofs pitched inward 9. Pickets twelve feet tall   The next day after the Massacre at Big Bottom, the settlers at Waterford and Wolf Creek Mills held a council to plan their common defense against Indian attacks. It was decided to build a heavily fortified stockade across the river from Waterford and about one-half mile down the river. Captain Joseph Frye was selected to superintend construction. With time being of the essence, it was decided that the fort should be three sided. Construction began almost immediately. The Ohio Company sent ten or twelve men up the river to assist.    The base of the fort was about two hundred feet in length and rested on the river. The fort enclosed about three fourths of an acre. The twelve-foot-tall pickets were set during the last days of February. The large double gates were put in place in early March. Captain William Gray commanded the garrison and eight soldiers were sent from Fort Harmar.    The Delawares and the Wyandots planned to strike the garrison in late February but chose to attack the settlement at Duck Creek first. On March 11, the Indians hit Fort Frye but the garrison had been alerted about the approaching war party and successfully defended the fort. The Indians killed thirty cattle and stole several cows. No further attacks occurred at Waterford during the Indian War.

92

Figure 4-1

93

Figure 4-2

94

Chapter Four: The Virginia Military District Look out, Here come the Virginians! His Majesty, the King of England in the year of our Lord 1609, granted a charter to the colony of Virginia for a tract of land fronting four hundred miles along the Atlantic Ocean and extending from Sea to Sea, West and Northwest. This description encompassed much of what was to become the Old Northwest Territory. The only interruptions to this grant were conflicting claims by the colonies of Connecticut and Massachusetts. After the Treaty of Paris in 1783 which ended the War for Independence with England, the newly created United States received all that land westerly to the Mississippi River. Therefore, the commonwealth of Virginia claimed that its sovereignty extended from the Atlantic to the Mississippi and northerly to Lake Superior.1 After having fought a war against excessive taxation, the fledgling states did not grant powers of taxation to the Continental Congress. Being forty million dollars in debt, Congress persuaded the states to cede their western lands to the new nation in order to raise funds. Virginia complied on October 20, 1783 and ceded all her claims to land north and west of the river Ohio to the new country, with one exception. Virginia, for the benefit of her veterans, reserved the land north of the Ohio River between the Scioto and Little Miami Rivers in case her bounty lands in Kentucky proved insufficient. Congress accepted the cession on March 1, 1784.2

C olonel R ich ard C. A nderson , P rincipal S urv eyor At the time of that cession, the Virginia legislature created a board of twenty veteran officers of the Virginia Line to oversee the distribution of these lands. This board appointed a superintendent to be in charge of all Virginia surveying in the reservation. On December 17, 1783 Colonel Richard C. Anderson was commissioned as Principal Surveyor “to locate and survey the several boundaries of the lands that have been given and granted by the General Assembly of this state to the said officers and soldiers.”3 Anderson opened his office on July 20, 1784 near Fort Nelson on Bear Grass Creek in Jefferson County, Virginia. This fort had been built in 1782 during the Revolutionary War by Anderson’s brother-in-law, General George Rogers Clark. On April 5, 1789 Anderson purchased an excellent farm of 500 acres from Peyton Short of Surrey County, Virginia. This farm was a part of an old military survey patented in the name of Henry Harrison. Anderson built a stone mansion 1.  Documents of the Continental Congress, Library of Congress, the Treaty of Paris was ratified by Congress on April 15, 1783. 2.  Clarence E. Carter, ed., Territorial Papers of the United States, vol. II (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1934), pp. 6–9. 3.  John McDonald, Biographical Sketches of General Nathaniel Massie, General Duncan McArthur, Captain William Wells and General Simon Kenton (Cincinnati: E. Morgan and Son, 1838), p. 23.

95

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

house and named it Soldiers’ Retreat.4 Fort Nelson at the Falls of the Ohio River became Louisville, Virginia.5 Entries made in the Kentucky Military District between the Green and Cumberland Rivers began almost immediately. No survey was legal unless it was made by Anderson or one of his deputy surveyors. All chain carriers, markers, and others making these surveys were duly sworn in by Colonel Anderson. The terms of Virginia’s reservation stated that they could only subdivide land north of the Ohio River should land in the District of Kentucky prove to be insufficient. Congress resolved on July 17, 1788 that Virginia prove the land south of the Ohio was not sufficient before surveying north of the river. Congress had acted too late! Colonel John O’Bannon of Richmond, Virginia was a deputy surveyor under Colonel Anderson’s command. During the summer of 1787, he ventured north of the Ohio River and began surveying tracts near the confluence of Eagle Creek and the Ohio River. His first entered survey was on November 13, 1787 for 1,000 acres to Mace Clements and was V.M.S. No. 386 on Warrant No. 738.6 On November 16, 1787 Colonel O’Bannon entered another 1000 acre survey, No. 455, for Captain Alexander Parker as part of Warrant No. 771.7 Survey No. 455 was recorded on February 15, 1788 by Colonel Anderson in Louisville and Survey No. 386 was recorded on March 26, 1788. O’Bannon continued to survey north of the Ohio River with as many as six different survey parties working simultaneously until July 1788. During that period, O’Bannon and his parties located and surveyed 147,392.67 acres.8 The Continental Congress in its last session was so alarmed by this violation that it passed a resolution declaring all of O’Bannon’s surveys null and void. When the US Con4.  William Pope Anderson, Anderson Family Records (Cincinnati, Ohio: W. F. Schaffer & Co., 1936). Edward L. Anderson Soldier and Pioneer: A Biographical Sketch of Lt. Col. Richard C. Anderson of the Continental Army (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons,1879). Richard Clough Anderson was born January 12, 1750 in Hanover County, Virginia. At age 16, against his father’s wishes, he signed on a merchant ship. That ship from Richmond was in Boston Harbor on the night of the Boston Tea Party. Young Anderson was commissioned a Captain in the 5th VA Regiment and served under the command of Colonel Charles Scott during the war. The night before the Battle of Trenton, Anderson led his company across the Delaware and attacked the Hessian sentries, killing one and wounding six others. Anderson spent the winter of 1777 at Valley Forge with the Continental Army. He was captured by the British at the siege of Charleston. Upon his release, he was ordered by General Washington to report to General Lafayette as an aide. He acted as a messenger to bring General Anthony Wayne’s army to the relief of Lafayette who was being pressed hard by Lord Cornwallis. Later Anderson organized the Virginia militia for Governor Nelson. After the war, Anderson became a charter member of the Society of Cincinnati in 1783. 5.  The County of Kentucky was created on June 6, 1776. On November 1, 1780, the County of Kentucky was abolished and divided into Jefferson, Lincoln, and Fayette Counties but the area was still known as the District of Kentucky. Kentucky became the 15th State of the Union on June 1, 1792. 6.  Virginia Military Surveys numbers 1 through 385 had been made previously in the vicinity of Louisville on the Green and the Tennessee Rivers. 7.  Survey Book A, Reel GR 8476, Series 4601, Historical Land Records, Auditor of the State of Ohio, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio. 8.  Nelson W. Evans, “Colonel John O’Bannon,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Publication, vol. 14, p. 318.

96

Chapter Four: The Virginia Military District

gress officially opened the Virginia Military Reserve north of the Ohio River on August 10, 1790, this resolution was repealed and Colonel O’Bannon’s 199 surveys were restored.9 The Virginia land system of metes and bounds descriptions used natural features such as rivers, creeks, and mountain ridges as boundary lines. This led to some unusual shapes of land, which stood in stark contrast to the rectangular surveys of the Old Seven Ranges and the Ohio Company’s Purchase. Recall that the surveys of the Old Seven Ranges began at a post set on the north bank of the Ohio River in the westerly line of Pennsylvania. The surveys of the Ohio Company began at the northwest corner of Township 2, Range VII of the Seven Ranges. The first Virginia Military Survey began “at the mouth of Eagle Creek, running down the Ohio, N 20 degrees W, 200 poles to a mulberry and two sugars.” While the US Government surveyors, under the direction of Thomas Hutchins, and the Ohio Company surveyors, under the leadership of General Rufus Putnam, chained and marked the six mile square townships on the ground with blazed trees and posts, Virginia surveyors sometimes estimated the acreage. The estimator would include as much as ten percent extra acreage to compensate for bad land that could not be farmed. The graduates from the College of William and Mary in Virginia, would simply climb to a clear vantage point and estimate the acreage that lay before them. How this worked out in Virginia Military Survey No. 15890 is presented later. Virginia’s plan to compensate its veterans was based on their rank and years of service during the war. She gave several times the amount of land to her veterans as the federal government gave its soldiers. Virginia awarded 200 acres to a private soldier, 400 acres to a non-commissioned officer, 2000 acres to a subaltern, 3000 acres to a Captain, 4000 acres to a Major, 4500 acres to a Lieutenant Colonel, 5000 acres to a Colonel, 10,000 acres to a Brigadier General, and 15,000 acres to a Major General. Each veteran was issued a warrant for his earned acreage by any court of record in the Commonwealth of Virginia. He would then visit the land and select his location. Next, he would submit an entry with a crude description and the desired acreage to the Principal Surveyor’s office. The Principal Surveyor would then assign a deputy surveyor to measure the land and prepare a description to be recorded with a V.M.S. Number which would be the same as the Entry Number. (See map of V.M.S. NO. 1393)10 Colonel Anderson’s original deputy surveyors were John O’Bannon, Nathaniel Massie, John Beasley, William Lytle, Arthur Fox, James Taylor, Joseph Kerr, Lucas Sullivant, and Walter Dun. Others who came later included Duncan McArthur, Thomas Worthington, Cadwallader Wallace, John A. Fulton, Benjamin Hough, and Alexander Bourne. Many of the original large surveys were rectangular as the best lands, the river bottoms, were taken first. 9.  Ohio Historical Society, Virginia Military Survey Book A, the first 46 pages of Book A are occupied by Colonel O’Bannon’s surveys. On page 47, Nathaniel Massie entered Survey No. 1973 for 1,000 acres for Levon Powell on January 2, 1792. 10.  Survey Book A, p. 289, Reel GR 8476, Series 4601, Land Records, Auditor of the State of Ohio, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio. 97

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

Surveyor General Josiah Meigs’ ordered Alexander Bourne to survey a baseline and two meridians. He surveyed a meridian line northerly from the origin of Eagle Creek (Elk River) and the baseline westerly from Chillicothe to Fort Ancient on the Little Miami River. A second meridian was surveyed from the mouth of Ohio Brush Creek northerly to the Indian Boundary Line of 1797. Meigs wanted survey control lines to check the size of the Virginia Military Reserve. The meridians and the baseline were later used to partially describe new county boundaries in the state. Veterans could combine warrants to form huge tracts of land, such as V.M.S. No. 14147 for 37,605 acres. V.M.S. No. 2739 and V.M.S. No. 3015 combined for a total of 4,566.33 acres. V.M.S. No. 798 was for 5,333.33 acres.11 V.M.S. No. 1996 was for the same amount. As the strangely shaped parcels became the norm (V.M.S. No. 491 contained 2000 acres and was eight miles long and one half mile wide),12 much swapping of land occurred. Confusion and litigation resulted. One member noted that Congress passed 34 separate acts to rectify problems that arose from the Virginia Military District in Ohio.13

G ener al Nath aniel M assie One of the most prolific Virginia deputy surveyors was Nathaniel Massie of Goochland County, Virginia. Born on December 28, 1763 to Nathaniel Massie Sr. and Elizabeth Watkins Massie, Nathaniel received a good education and was well versed in English and mathematics. During the war he served in the Virginia militia in 1780–1781 and fought in the Virginia campaign against Bannister Tarleton and Lord Cornwallis’ army. After the war, Massie became a land surveyor. Outfitted with a fine horse and surveyor’s equipment by his father, Massie made his way west to the Kentucky District in 1784. He quickly became a proficient and skilled surveyor while locating warrants that his father had sent with him. Massie worked as a clerk in Colonel Anderson’s office until 1790, when he was appointed a deputy surveyor by Anderson. Between 1783 and 1790 more than 1500 Kentuckians were estimated to have been killed or captured by the Indians.14 Federal troops never protected the pioneers of the Virginia Military District. Unlike Hutchins’ surveyors who were protected by troops from Forts McIntosh and Steuben, Putnam’s surveyors who were protected by troops from Fort Harmar, and Symmes’ surveyors who were protected by troops from Fort Washington, the Virginia surveyors north of the Ohio were on their own. As a result, they became some of the wiliest and most resourceful frontiersmen of the era. The 4,200,000 acres of the Virginia Military Reserve were the home to the Shawnee Indians, who were the most energetic and warlike of all the Ohio tribes. The Shawnees resolved to die fighting rather than give up their beautiful valleys and bountiful woods. 11.  Ibid, p.120. 12.  This survey was made by Massie on April 10, 1793 and is recorded in Survey Book A, Ohio Historical Society. 13.  Payson J. Treat, The National Land System 1785–1820 (New York: E. B. Treat & Co. Publishers, 1910), p. 338. 14.  Basil Meeks, “General Harmar’s Expedition,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Society Publication, vol. 20, p. 77. 98

Chapter Four: The Virginia Military District

Into this wilderness came Nathaniel Massie in 1788, most likely as one of Colonel O’Bannon’s surveyors. He and Arthur Fox surveyed with great stealth as every day north of the Ohio River put them at risk of death. They chose to survey in the depth of winter. The Indians were mostly in their winter quarters and seldom ventured far from their villages. If they did, it was usually in small hunting parties. Not only did exposure to Indian attacks plague the surveyors, so did exposure to the elements. The survey parties carried only flour and salt with them, which was mixed with the fresh game that had been shot that day and boiled in the form of a soup. Of course this fare was entirely dependent upon the hunters’ ability to kill deer, bear, or turkeys for the evening meal. These Virginians were some of the best of the frontiersmen to drag surveyor’s chains across the Northwest Territory. Nathaniel Massie was one of the bravest and gifted, and a proven natural leader. He could endure fatigue, exposure and, privations and yet remain calm and upbeat. To survey north of the Ohio River, Massie needed a base of supplies and a refuge in times of peril. In 1790 Massie chose the bottom along the Ohio River opposite the Three Islands (twelve miles upriver from the present town of Maysville, Kentucky, which was then called Limestone, Virginia). “In order to secure settlers for his station, Massie advertised his project in Kentucky, and offered each of the first twenty-five families, as a donation, one in-lot, one out-lot and one hundred acres of land, provide they would settle in a town he intended to lay off at his settlement.”15 Nineteen families soon crossed the Ohio River to the new town of Massie’s Station, Virginia Military Survey No. 1038, Territory northwest of the river Ohio.16 Each man had to swear that he would make this his permanent residence for two years, bear arms for the common defense, and not be absent in times of actual danger. The town was surveyed by Massie during March 1791 and enclosed in a stockade with blockhouses at each corner. The town’s name was later changed from Massie’s Station to Manchester (the home of Massie’s family in England). It was the first settlement in the Virginia Military Reserve.17 The second settlement in the Virginia Military Reserve was the fortified station of Mercersburgh. Captain Aaron Mercer was its founder. He was a relative of the notable General Hugh Mercer, who was the hero of the Battle of Princeton. The Mercer family journeyed from Scotland in 1746 and settled in Pennsylvania near what became Mercersburg, Pennsylvania. During the French and Indian War, Hugh Mercer met George Washington. At Washington’s urging, Mercer moved to Fredericksburg, Virginia and opened an apothecary store. In 1775 Hugh Mercer was elected Colonel of the minutemen of four Virginia coun15.  David Meade Massie, Nathaniel Massie, A Pioneer of Ohio: A Sketch of His Life and Selections from His Correspondence (Cincinnati, Ohio: Robert Clarke & Co., 1896). 16.  Survey No. 1038 was patented to Brigadier General Charles Scott on Warrant No. 815 for 900 acres, 600 acres and 380 acres. Copies of these surveys can be found at the Ohio Historical Society in Book B, p. 59, p. 179 and Book C, p. 146. 17.  Massie’s Station also known as Massiesburgh was 38 miles below the Scioto River and 12 miles above Limestone, Kentucky. The name was changed on January 1, 1802. “The Journal of a Tour into the Territory Northwest of the Alleghany Mountains,” Thaddeus Mason Harris, Boston: 1805, p. 131. 99

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

ties. General Hugh Mercer proposed the winning strategy to Washington at the Battle of Princeton but was mortally wounded in that fight.18 His nephew, Captain Aaron Mercer, left Winchester, Virginia with his family in 1790. He arrived in Columbia at the confluence of the Ohio and the Little Miami Rivers just as the troops of General Harmar’s army returned from the defeat at the hands of Little Turtle’s Indians. In 1792 Mercer led several families northerly to Virginia Military Survey No. 500 which had been surveyed by Colonel O’Bannon in 1787. This survey was patented to Colonel Holt Richardson and was on the east side of the Little Miami River and about three miles above Gerard’s Station. Mercer laid out the town on the first elevated plain in the Little Miami Valley near several cold and clear springs. The log fortress was called Mercersburgh and served as a rendezvous for the local militia during the Indian War. Mercersburgh became Newtown in the early part of the twentieth century.19 With his station surveyed and fortified, Massie then turned his attention to surveying the many warrants that he had accumulated from Virginia veterans. Surveyors were paid either in cash (about ten pounds Virginia currency for each 1000-acre tract entered and surveyed) or were given a share of the lands measured and marked, usually from a quarter to a half of the total amount. The most profitable plan was for the surveyors to buy the warrants and survey the land for themselves. Warrants sold in Virginia for as low as twenty cents up to one dollar per acre. In December 1791 just one month after the virtual destruction of the US Army on the Wabash, Massie organized a survey party and ventured up Brush Creek as far as the three forks.20 As one participant, Colonel John McDonald noted in his memoirs, “Nathaniel Massie’s plan for the safety of the party called for three assistant surveyors, each of whom was assigned six men. Leading each party was the hunter who was advanced two to three hundred yards from the surveyors. He was looking for game and for Indians. Next in line were the surveyor and his two chainmen and the marker. They were followed by the packhorse men with the supplies and the baggage. Lastly, about two or three hundred yards in the rear came the rear guard man who was called the Spy, whose duty was to look out for Indians trailing the group. All the men, including the surveyor, carried his rifle and powder along with his blanket and his surveying equipment. Cooking utensils and provisions were on the packhorses, as well as the camp equipment. Very little food was brought on these expeditions, only flour and salt, as it was thought that the forest provided enough game for subsistence. 18.  John T. Grodnick, The Life of General Hugh Mercer (New York: The Neal Publishing Company, 1906), 54. General George Washington rode beyond his line to rescue General Mercer who had been bayoneted by a British soldier. Washington waved his hat and cheered his troops. The Seventh Virginia regiment charged with esprit de corps and broke the enemy line. 19.  John B Jewett, History of Cincinnati and Hamilton County, Ohio (Cincinnati: S.B. Nelson & Co., Publishers, 1894). 20.  Much of what follows is from the writings of a participant of these campaigns, Colonel John McDonald of Ross County, Ohio. In his book titled Biographical Sketches of General Nathaniel Massie, General Duncan McArthur, Captain William Wells & General Simon Kenton, self-published in 1838, Colonel McDonald relates personal observations, stories, and facts. 100

Chapter Four: The Virginia Military District

“At the end of each day’s work of chaining distances and marking trees, the mess of seven men built a fire and cooked their food. After dinner the men enjoyed a few minutes of conversation and camaraderie. When it was time for sleep, Massie gave a signal and all the men left the comfortable fire carrying their weapons and blankets and ventured two hundred yards into the forest. There, they scraped away the snow and huddled down for the night. Each mess formed one bed with half of the blankets placed on the ground and the other half used to cover the group. Here they slept with their rifles in their arms and their powder pouches used for pillows. When first light appeared, Massie sent two men to reconnoiter and make a circuit around the fires to look for signs of Indians. Self-preservation required these procedures. If no signs of Indians were found, then the morning meal was cooked and the chains were dropped for the new day’s work. By employing such measures, the surveying of the winter of 1791–1792 was accomplished without any loss of life.” During the winter of 1792–93 Massie employed Joseph Williams and George Wade to survey the Paint Creek Valley and part of the Scioto country. Massie found the river bottoms richer than expected and made entries of the best land along Paint Creek. In the spring, the party returned safely to Massie’s Station and Massie traveled to Louisville to make entries of the surveys. In the fall of 1793 Massie prepared for surveying more of the Scioto River and Paint Creek Valleys. He knew that this would be a dangerous undertaking and hired thirty men. His three assistant surveyors were John Beasley, Nathaniel Beasley, and Peter Lee. Massie also hired a new young chainman named Duncan McArthur. McArthur had served with General Josiah Harmar’s army in the campaign against the Indians in 1790 and had survived the fighting at the confluence of the St. Mary’s and St. Joseph’s Rivers. Now at age twenty-four, McArthur was learning the art and science of surveying. “He was a strong and muscular man capable of enduring fatigue and privations equal to the best Indian.”21 Massie’s surveys were extended that year up Paint Creek and on the North Fork as well. They surveyed much of the area that would become Ross and Pickaway Counties included in the Virginia Reserve. Massie’s crews finished the work without incident. The Indians were gathering to attack the new fort built under orders of General Anthony Wayne at the site of General St. Clair’s defeat. Fort Recovery was attacked in June 1794 by about two thousand Indians and British soldiers. The new fort commanded by Captain Alexander Gibson of Staunton, Virginia, withstood the onslaught against overwhelming odds of ten to one. “During the winter of 1794–95, Massie and his men surveyed tracts on Todd’s Fork of the Little Miami River. The work had progressed northerly to Caesar’s Creek when the winter weather turned brutal. Over a foot of snow and sleet fell and the supply of flour ran short. For the first two weeks the men remained confident in their abilities to withstand such conditions. However when a large party of Indians was discovered, everything changed. Massie therefore resolved to desist from surveying and made a rapid retreat to his station.”22 The 21. McDonald, Biographical Sketches. 22.  Ibid, p. 51. 101

Figure 4-3

102

Chapter Four: The Virginia Military District

party traveled all that night until noon the next day, when they halted to cook provisions and rest. After a fatiguing march of two days and nights from the headwaters of Caesar’s Creek, they arrived at Massie’s Station. Later some of the men ventured out and found evidence that the large Indian party had followed them to about a mile north of town. In August 1794 General Anthony Wayne and his Legion of the United States defeated the combined Indian forces of Little Turtle, Blue Jacket, and Canadian militia at the Battle of Fallen Timbers. Many Indians chiefs gathered in the summer of 1795 at Fort Greene Ville to sign General Wayne’s treaty and promised no more hostilities. Suddenly the forests were much safer for surveyors, who could now measure tracts of land in the summer time. The Treaty opened for settlement all land south of a line from the Crossing Place above Fort Laurens on the Tuscarawas to the forks of Loramie’s Creek. This line crossed the Virginia Military District in its northern realm and the reserve below this line was now safer for surveys and claims to be made. In the spring of 1795, Massie prepared a surveying expedition to the waters of the Little Miami River. Once again he employed three assistant surveyors and the usual complement of men. The party set off from Massie’s Station in March, as the weather was fair. Massie commenced surveying on the west fork of Ohio Brush Creek. Game was abundant and the turkeys killed were of the finest quality. After reaching the headwaters of Brush Creek, the party moved on to the north fork of Paint Creek. The men noticed that the weather was turning colder and soon a snow began to fall. The snowfall accumulated almost two feet, the deepest most of the veterans had ever seen. The turkeys and other small game could run on the crust of the snow but the hunters could not. Soon the surveyors were out of meat and the prospects of obtaining more became bleak. This expedition was subsequently called the Starving Tour. The party huddled around the camp fires day and night praying for the snow and ice to stop. On the third day, Duncan McArthur killed two turkeys which were boiled and divided into twenty-eight portions. Each man received an equal part which included the heads, feet, and entrails. All was devoured and regarded as the most delicious meal the men could remember.23 On the fourth day of unrelenting snow and sleet, the men started for home with the strongest and the healthiest placed in the front to break the snow. By that night the party reached the mouth of the Rattlesnake Fork of Paint Creek, a distance of ten miles. The next morning dawned sunny and warmer and the men began to hunt. The meal that night consisted of venison and bear, which was a real feast to starving men. The horrors of these twenty-eight men during those four days who were without tents or any shelter and without food or provisions were tremendous. They were over seventy miles from help and had no road or trace by which to retreat. Under such sufferings, Massie always showed a cheerful face and encouraged his men to think of better times. His good humor never failed him during the gloom and despair of this time of privation and suffering.24

After the storm passed, fine weather and plenty of fresh game returned and the party went to work. Massie completed the survey of all the lands that he had planned to survey that season. The summer of 1795 passed without any further disturbance from the Indians. Although not much faith was placed in treaties with the Indians, settlements of colonial Americans began to extend from the town of Manchester into the Virginia Reserve. Massie sold large amounts of land on credit to settlers who would occupy the land. Many cabins were raised along the Ohio River and on Eagle and Brush Creeks.25 23. Ibid. 24.  Ibid, pp. 55–56. 25.  Ibid., p. 57. 103

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones The F ounding

of

C hillicothe

The fertility of the soil along Paint Creek and in the Scioto Valley attracted the attention of many Kentuckians and Virginians. Massie owned numerous large tracts of first-rate land in that area. He was determined to locate a settlement in the Scioto Valley that year. To attract settlers, he offered a donation to the first one hundred settlers to his new town. In the autumn of 1795 Massie and his surveying party of almost forty men, which included the notable Indian fighter Simon Kenton, were attacked by a large party of Shawnee Indians on Paint Creek near Reeves Crossing. This band of renegade Shawnees from the upper Scioto region had continued their warlike behavior even after General Wayne’s Treaty. They became such a problem that Chief Little Turtle volunteered to take his Miami warriors to the Scioto and wipe them out. The US military refused this offer. During the fight, several Indians were killed and wounded while one white man was killed and one wounded. This skirmish, known as the Battle of Reeves Crossing was the last engagement of the Indian War of 1791–95. Massie’s men returned to Manchester and the surveying ended for that year.26 According to McDonald “the failure of the 1795 expedition did not deter Massie. He set forth once again the following year from Manchester with two new surveying parties. One party journeyed up the Ohio River and then up the Scioto River on large boats, while another party traveled overland. Both parties met at a place on the Scioto River known as Station Prairie. The party that arrived by boat brought farming utensils and other tools and equipment needed to make a permanent settlement. On April 1, they commenced construction of several cabins and began to prepare the land for planting corn. Three hundred acres of rich river bottom were turned over by thirty ploughs drawn by large draft horses. Massie at last selected the site for his new town. The site was about four or five miles above the mouth of Paint Creek. A large river bottom that was heavily timbered was chosen. At the big bend in the Scioto, it consisted of high and dry ground not subject to the spring floods of the river.” Massie and his party worked most of 1796 surveying the area near the Forks of the Scioto.27 On their way down the Scioto in the fall, Massie selected his town site. The new town was laid out in the spring of 1797 on land owned by Massie in (V.M.S. No. 2462.)28 McArthur and Massie surveyed two hundred and eighty-seven in-lots. “These in-lots measured six poles in front and were twelve poles deep. There were one hundred and sixty-nine out-lots of four acres each. Two streets, Main and Paint, were six poles wide. Water and Front Streets were five poles wide and the rest of the streets were four poles wide. One hundred in-lots and out-lots in the new town were chosen by the first one hundred settlers as donations from Massie. The proprietor held a consultation with his friends and gave the town the name of Chillicothe.”29 26.  Lyle S. Evans, A Standard History of Ross County, Ohio, vol. I (Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1917), 399–401. 27.  Virginia Military Survey Book A, p. 272—May, 1796 to p. 289—October, 1796, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio. 28.  Virginia Military Survey Book A, p. 320, June 9, 1797, 1900 acres on Military Warrants Nos.2075, 3398 and 4642, Nathaniel Massie—surveyor, Duncan McArthur and Peter Lee—chain carriers. 29. Treat, The National Land System 1785–1820, p. 62. 104

Figure 4-4

105

Figure 4-5

106

107

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

This was not on the location of the old Shawnee town of the same name, however, it was named for it. Duncan McArthur was compensated with one in-lot and one out-lot and 150 acres of land nearby for his services. The town plat was not recorded until April 29, 1802, when Governor Arthur St. Clair ordered all such plats to be recorded at the respective county seats.30 The extension of Colonel Ebenezer Zane’s trace in 1797 from the Hockhocking to the Scioto greatly enhanced the growth of Chillicothe. The route that Zane chose brought him to the Scioto in Township 8, Range XXI and Township 1, Range XXII. The ferry crossed the Scioto and connected with the north end of Walnut Street in Chillicothe.31 Ross County was created on August 20, 1798 by the Territorial Governor and Chillicothe was selected to be the county seat.32 In 1799 a post office was opened at Chillicothe and Joseph Tiffin was appointed postmaster. Mr. Tiffin opened a tavern named “General Anthony Wayne” at the corner of Water and Walnut Streets. Thomas Gregg opened a tavern called “The Green Tree Tavern” at the corner of Paint and Water Streets.33 Working out from Chillicothe, Robert Todd, John Beasley, Henry Massie, and Duncan McArthur surveyed west into what is now Highland County. In 1798 Henry Massie, Nathaniel’s brother, laid out the town of New Market, which he named after his favorite town in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Soon thereafter, William Wishart, an energetic and enterprising Scotsman, built a tavern in the center of town. In the spring of 1799 a new road was opened from Cincinnati to Chillicothe. This road passed through New Market. Wishart’s tavern expanded into an inn and post office and Wishart became postmaster of the town.34 In 1800 the seat of government of the Northwest Territory was moved from Cincinnati to Chillicothe. A large stone building was erected at the northwest corner of Main and Paint Streets on the Public Ground.35 This was the new home of the territorial legislature and Governor St Clair. Chillicothe, led by Massie, Worthington, McArthur, Tiffin, and the energy of the newly arrived Virginians, quickly became the center of political power in the Northwest Territory. When the Act of Congress of 1829 moved the office of Principal Surveyor of the Virginia Military Reserve from Louisville to Chillicothe, both the US surveys and the Vir30.  Plat of Chillicothe, Ross County Recorder’s Office, Deed Book II, p. 95. 31.  Henry Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio. II (Norwalk, Ohio: The Laning Printing Co., 1898), p. 492. 32.  Executive Journal of the North West Territory, 507–508. 33. Howe, Historical Collections of Ohio, vol. 2, p. 493. 34.  Daniel Scott, Esq., A History of the Early Settlement of Highland County, Ohio (Hillsborough, Ohio: The Gazette, 1890). 35.  Plat of Chillicothe, Recorder’s Office, Ross County, Deed Volume II, p. 95. The Public Ground was 12 poles square.

108

Figure 4-6. Plat of Virginia Military Surveys in Paint, Twin and Buckskin Townships in Ross County

109

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

ginia surveys originated at Chillicothe.36 Edward Tiffin, the fourth Surveyor General of the United States, had moved that office from Cincinnati to Chillicothe in 1815. As a result Chillicothe became the home of many deputy surveyors who worked throughout Ohio.37 From 1790 to 1800 Nathaniel Massie surveyed 708 tracts of land in the Virginia Military Reserve containing 750,000 acres.38 In 1800 Massie visited Chaumiere des Praires in Lexington, the home of Colonel David Meade. There he met the beautiful and educated daughter of the Colonel, Susan Everard Meade. After a short courtship they were soon married. Massie moved his new bride to a 1,290-acre tract that he owned around the falls of Paint Creek.39 There he built her a large and comfortable Virginia-style mansion.40 Massie’s mansion had eight bedrooms and six fireplaces and served as a place of hospitality for Virginians who traveled to Chillicothe to locate their military claims.41 Nathaniel and Susan Massie’s hospitality and graciousness were legendary throughout the Old Dominion. Massie’s farm was on the south side of Paint Creek while Jacob and Enoch Smith and ten Virginia families lived on the north side near Cove Run. The Smiths, who were expert carpenters, built one of the largest and finest mills in the territory and laid out the town of New Amsterdam in 1799.42 In the election of 1807, General Massie and Return Jonathan Meigs received nearly the same number of votes for governor. The Ohio Assembly selected Massie to be governor but he refused to accept the office because Meigs received a few more votes than he did. Meigs was declared ineligible because of residency requirements. Thomas Kirker, the speaker of the Senate, who was once a chainman for Massie’s survey party, then became the second Governor of Ohio. During the War of 1812, General Massie raised a large mounted force of men from the Scioto Valley and rode hard to the relief of Fort Meigs. The British and Indian siege was lifted before General Massie’s command arrived at the Foot of the Rapids of the Miami of the Lake. General Harrison was unable to supply this large force, therefore the Scioto men returned home. One month later the British and Indians unsuccessfully besieged Fort Meigs again during July 1813. 36.  William Thomas Hutchinson, The Bounty Lands of the American Revolution in Ohio (University of Chicago, 1927), p. 192. 37.  Sylvanus Bourne, Benjamin Hough, John A. Fulton, Cadwallader Wallace, Robert Todd, Henry Massie, Walter Dun, Joseph Kerr, John Beasley, and Allen Latham were a few who called Chillicothe home. 38. Massie, Nathaniel Massie, A Pioneer of Ohio, p. 29. 39.  V.M.S. No. 5011 (Book B, p. 122) for 1290 acres was originally surveyed as V.M.S. No. 2620. Massie re-surveyed this tract on July 25, 1806. See book A, p. 446. Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio. 40.  Clifford Neal, Federal Land Series, vol. 4, Pt. 1 (Chicago: American Library Association, 1982), V.M.S. No. 5011, 1290 acres, Book B, p. 446, Ross Co. Paxton Twp., on Warrant 2319 to Captain Wm. Meredith sold to Nathaniel Massie October 23, 1800, notation: “Bainbridge.” 41.  Massie’s mansion was about two miles west of the present day Village of Bainbridge in Ross County. 42.  Daniel Scott Esq., A History of the Early Settlement of Highland County, Ohio (Hillsborough: The Gazette, 1890). Ross County Recorder’s Office, Deed Volume II, p. 97.

110

Chapter Four: The Virginia Military District

On November 3, 1813 Nathaniel Massie died at his home of pneumonia. He was fifty years old and left a widow, three sons, and two daughters behind. General Massie was originally buried on his farm. In 1870, his remains and those of his wife Susan were moved to Grandview Cemetery in Chillicothe, which overlooks the beautiful Paint Creek Valley. This valley intrigued Nathaniel Massie the first time he saw it. Nathaniel and Susan Massie are buried near the large flagpole and soldier’s monument. Their final resting place is on the heights and looks out over Massie’s Town.

G ener al D uncan M c A rthur Duncan McArthur was born on January 14, 1772 in Duchess County, New York. His parents were from the highlands of Scotland. His mother was from the famous Campbell clan and died when Duncan was young. His father, James, moved the family to the Pennsylvania frontier. Young McArthur had to work as a hired hand on neighboring farms which prevented him from acquiring a formal education. McArthur taught himself to read and write. In 1790, he joined the Pennsylvania volunteers who served under General Josiah Harmar in the campaign against the Miami Indians. The Pennsylvania men journeyed to Fort Washington on the Ohio River and became part of Colonel Hardin’s division. Hardin’s command suffered numerous losses during the battles on the Eel and Omee Rivers but McArthur returned with the survivors to Cincinnati. In the fall of 1793 Nathaniel Massie hired McArthur as a chain carrier to survey the Scioto country near Paint Creek. At age twenty-four, McArthur exchanged his rifle, beaver traps, and other frontier accoutrements for a surveyor’s compass and chain. He became an assistant to Massie and was with him on the Starving Tour in March 1795. On February 20, 1796 McArthur married Nancy McDonald, the sister of the oft-quoted Colonel John McDonald. He assisted Massie in laying out Chillicothe that year and received one in-lot, one out-lot and one hundred fifty acres as his pay. He built his residence, Fruit Hill, on the one-hundred-fifty-acre tract about two miles west of Chillicothe. In 1798 McArthur led a small party of settlers to the upper Paint Creek and laid out the town of Greenfield. In 1798 Ross County was organized and McArthur was appointed to the rank of captain of the militia by Governor St. Clair. McArthur replaced his old friend, Massie, as Major General of the Ohio Militia on February 20, 1808. McArthur served under the command of General Hull during the War of 1812 and was forced to surrender with Hull at Detroit. He returned to Fruit Hill as a paroled prisoner of war. [Later exchanged by the government on March 23, 1813, the President appointed McArthur to the rank of Brigadier General.] He assumed command of the Northwestern Army on May 14, 1814 when General William Henry Harrison resigned his command over difficulties with the Secretary of War, John Armstrong. General McArthur raised a regiment of mounted Kentucky volunteers and led them deep into western Ontario. He pushed his troops as far as Burlington Heights and then turned south with the enemy fast on his trail. McArthur ordered all mills and food supply depots burned. On November 6, 1814 McArthur turned and fought a pitched battle with

111

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

his pursuers at Malcom’s Mills. The Americans lost one man. They killed or captured one hundred enemy soldiers. This was the last land battle in Canada of the War of 1812. General McArthur returned to a hero’s welcome in Ohio.43 General McArthur and General Lewis Cass, as sole agents for the United States, conducted the Treaty of Fort Meigs at the Foot of the Rapids of the Miami of the Lake on September 29, 1817.44 This treaty with the Wyandot, Seneca, Shawnee, Delaware, Pottawatomie, Ottawa, and Chippewa tribes opened much of northwestern Ohio to American settlement. The treaty signed the following year at St. Mary’s on September 17, 1818 opened even more Ohio land to settlement. McArthur surveyed Virginia claims north of the Greenville Treaty line during the 1820s and submitted his last survey on November 10, 1830. General McArthur, who was hugely popular among the people of Ohio, was elected Governor in 1830. McArthur, who was of humble upbringings and self-taught, contrasted with Ohio’s previous college-educated governors. While in Columbus, McArthur was severely injured when a snow-laden porch roof collapsed on him and crushed his knee. After serving two years as governor, McArthur retired from public service. Old and crippled from several war wounds and many nights of camping in the winter cold during his surveying career, McArthur died April 29, 1839 in almost total obscurity. He was sixty-six years old. General McArthur was buried in Grandview Cemetery, at Chillicothe (Section 9 c). 43.  Clarence H. Cramer, “The Career of Duncan McArthur”, Columbus: PhD Dissertation, The Ohio State University, 1931. 44.  Beverley W. Bond, Foundations of Ohio (Columbus, Ohio: Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society, 1941).

112

Chapter Four: The Virginia Military District

Thom as Worthington On June 20, 1796 young Thomas Worthington set sail from Wheeling, Virginia down the Ohio River. Worthington carried with him a considerable number of Virginia military warrants, including some from his friend Colonel William Darke.45 His boat docked at the bustling new town of Marietta, where he secured a place on a sailing packet boat. On this part of his journey, Worthington was enchanted by a beautiful and charming young lady with whom he traveled as far as Belle Prie where she went to visit her father, Colonel Israel Putnam. On June 28 Worthington passed the French settlement of Gallipolis on his way to the Scioto. On July 3 he arrived at Indian Creek and met a man who served as a guide on the journey up the Scioto. They traveled north to Station Prairie and viewed the three hundred acres of corn growing in a large river bottom. Next, Worthington and his guide found Massie’s Town, or Chillicothe, in its formative stages.46 About twenty cabins were built or under construction, but there was no mill, tavern, or store. The settlers lived off the game, which was plentiful, and wild fruits of the woods. On July 15 Worthington contracted with Duncan McArthur to survey a 2866-acre tract of land northwest of town. He watched the men chain distances and blaze line trees. He had supper that night with the surveyors. It was a meal of flour and bear fat. The next morning, McArthur went deer hunting while Worthington celebrated his twenty-third birthday alone in the wilderness. Such was Thomas Worthington’s introduction to the Virginia Military Reserve. He returned to his beautiful Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, married Eleanor Swearingen, and applied for a position as a deputy surveyor under the command of Colonel Richard Anderson. In May 1797 Worthington and his new wife, Eleanor, and brother-in-law, Edward Tiffin, set out for the Northwest Territory. Tiffin, a thirty-year-old doctor from Charles Town, Virginia, had married Worthington’s younger sister Mary. When the party arrived in Chillicothe, they were amazed to find almost three hundred cabins with another one hundred within ten miles. New settlers seemed to arrive daily as the area exploded with excitement and growth. The surveying business was booming and Worthington was eager to locate 7600 acres in warrants that he brought with him from Virginia. He chose young Duncan McArthur once again to be his surveyor. McArthur received one-fifth of the quantity of land for his services. Worthington paid all the surveying expenses plus the fees for entering the tracts.47 Thus began a working relationship that lasted many years. Soon after, Worthington met his old friend from Virginia Nathaniel Massie and the two became business partners. 45.  Lt. Colonel William Darke survived St Clair’s Defeat on the banks of the Wabash in 1791. Darke’s youngest son, Joseph, had been killed by the Indians and he was severely wounded. 46.  Alfred B. Sears, Thomas Worthington, Father of Ohio Statehood (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1958). 47.  Ibid, p.17.

113

bl a ze s, p os ts,

&

stones

The leadership of the Virginia Military District soon coalesced in Massie,48 McArthur,49 Worthington,50and Tiffin51 all in Chillicothe, Northwestern Territory. Worthington built his two-story home Adena on a hill about two miles northwest of town. Working from his office in this grand structure, Worthington surveyed for Surveyor General Putnam in Congress Lands East of the Scioto in 1798–99. He surveyed for Principal Surveyor Colonel Anderson in the Virginia Military Reserve and later surveyed for the next Surveyor General Jared Mansfield in the United States Military Tract. Worthington and his son, James Taylor Worthington, surveyed townships for Surveyor General Edward Tiffin in Congress Lands South of the Baseline and East of the Meridian in 1820. On May 12, 1800 President John Adams nominated Worthington to be register of the land office in Chillicothe. Territorial Governor St. Clair became highly critical of Worthington’s actions in that office. Colonel Elias Langham, one of St. Clair’s minions, heaped verbal attacks upon Worthington. Worthington turned to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin for support of his actions.

L ucas S ullivant No treatise on the Virginia Military District would be complete without discussing surveyor Lucas Sullivant. Sullivant was born in Mecklenburg County, Virginia in 1765. He fought bravely as a nineteen year old in the War for Independence and afterwards moved to Kentucky. He became quite successful as a surveyor and in 1787 Colonel Anderson appointed Sullivant a deputy surveyor for Virginia. 52 From the Falls of the Ohio, Sullivant ventured north of the river with Colonel O’Bannon in 1787. Since Massie, Fox, and the other deputies were surveying the waters of Paint Creek, Caesar’s Creek, and Ohio Brush Creek, Sullivant went further north to survey the forks of the Scioto. His first expeditions were driven back by the Shawnees. 48. Massie, Nathaniel Massie, A Pioneer of Ohio. Massie and Worthington carried on many business dealings in the years to come. Massie was a chief supporter of Worthington’s drive for statehood in 1802. Massie became Speaker of the Ohio Senate in 1803 and ran for governor in 1807 against Return Jonathan Meigs. Massie received fewer votes than Meigs but Meigs was ineligible for the office and the Ohio General Assembly declared Massie the winner. When Massie declined the office, the president of the Ohio Senate, Thomas Kirker became governor. Massie died of pneumonia on November 3, 1813. 49. McDonald, Biographical Sketches. McArthur entered politics in 1805 and was elected to the Ohio Senate and became speaker of that body in 1809. He became Ohio’s eleventh Governor in 1830. McArthur died at his home, Fruit Hill, near Chillicothe on April 29, 1839. 50. Sears, Thomas Worthington, Father of Ohio Statehood. Worthington served as Ohio’s first Senator in 1803 and was elected governor in 1816. He died on June 20, 1825 in New York City at age 53. 51.  William E. Gilmore, Life of Edward Tiffin, First Governor of Ohio (Chillicothe: Horney & Son, Publishers, 1897). He was born in Carlisle, England in 1766. Tiffin moved to The Northwest Territory with Worthington in 1797. Tiffin became Ohio’s first governor in 1803 and in 1809 was selected to be Speaker of the Ohio House. In 1812, President James Monroe selected Tiffin to be the first Commissioner of the General Land Office in Washington DC. When the British Army burned that city during the War of 1812, Tiffin saved the Ohio survey records by hiding them in private houses. In 1814, Tiffin became Surveyor General of the United States. He held this office until he was removed by President Jackson in 1829. Tiffin died on August 9, 1829. 52.  Joseph Sullivant, A Genealogy and Family Memorial, Ohio State Journal, Columbus, Ohio, 1874.

114

Chapter Four: The Virginia Military District

During one survey on the waters of Deer Creek in what is now Madison County, Sullivant was attacked by the Indians and was forced to throw his surveyor’s compass into some brush. He quickly aimed his small shotgun at the Indian bearing down on him, with tomahawk raised high, and pulled the trigger. After killing the Indian, Sullivant raced to catch up to his men and all fled to safety. About ten years later when the land around where this attack took place was surveyed, Sullivant’s compass was found in good condition and returned to his family. The compass was a prized family possession thereafter. On another survey north of the forks of the Scioto, Sullivant was separated from his men. Pursued by Indians, he thought he might be killed. On the west bank of the Scioto above where Dublin now stands, he carved his initials and date into a tree to let those who would come looking for him know that he had been there. Years later his son Joseph, who became one of the leading botanists in the United States, was exploring the Scioto. He grew tired and sat down under a large tree. Looking up, he saw his father’s initials carved into the tree. He was where his father had left a memorial to himself when fearing for his life.53 Many days the survey crews went without fresh game. On one occasion after several days of nothing to eat, Sullivant told the cook one morning to gather up all the scraps and bones around camp and make a stew for the evening meal. After chaining and marking all day near the forks of the Scioto, the men returned to camp tired and hungry. A most delicious and appetizing aroma drifted forth from the boiling camp kettle. Each man eagerly received his share of the soup in his tin cup. The bones and scraps of meat were distributed by lot and Sullivant received the head of some small animal for his portion. After dinner the men were gathered around the campfire, happy and content. The cook, somewhat vain about the success he had achieved, asked them to guess what they had just eaten. After many incorrect guesses, the cook finally confessed that they had dined on skunk stew. Some of the men laughed, some swore and wanted to whip the cook, and one poor fellow lost his meal that he had just swallowed.54 This was the heart of the wilderness and wolves were a constant threat around the camp. With their howling and barking, sleep was uneasy. Panthers and cougars were often found prowling about, especially when venison was in supply. There were other dangers. One morning Sullivant awoke to sense something heavy on his body. He cast his eyes about without moving his arms or changing his position. To his horror he observed a large rattlesnake snugly coiled up enjoying the warmth of his blanket. With a quick and vigorous thrust, he hurled the blanket and the venomous reptile from him. Jumping to his feet, he dispatched the snake with a quick blow of an axe. In the summer and autumn of 1797, Sullivant laid out the town of Franklinton on land he owned at the forks of the Scioto. He had purchased Warrant No. 850 from Lieutenant Robert Vance for 1000 acres which Vance had entered as Entry No. 1393. This entry, made August 17, 1787, stated, “Lieutenant Robert Vance enters 1000 acres of land, part of military warrant No. 850 on the Scioto, beginning at the upper corner of John Overton’s entry No. 53.  Jane D. Sullivant, “Lucas Sullivant—His Personality and Adventures,” Ohio Archaeological and Historical Publication vol. 37, pp. 183–187. 54. Sullivant, A Genealogy and Family Memorial, p. 105. 115

116

Figure 4-7 

Figure 4-7 (continued). Nathaniel Massie in the spring of 1796 established his surveyor’s camp on the west bank of the Scioto opposite the big island. With his chain carriers Bazel Adams and Anthony Smith and marker Duncan McArthur, Massie surveyed a baseline at right angles to the river on a course of North 8o degrees West. The V.M.S. No. 420, a 1000 acre tract for Dr. John Knight was surveyed May 15 as well as Survey No. 717. Another 1000 acre tract, V.M.S. No. 971 was surveyed on May 18, 1796 for Dr. Knight. Progressing up Massie’s baseline, another 1000 acre tract (V.M.S. No. 1400) was surveyed for Capt. Edward Dowse on July 26. That same day, Massie surveyed another 1000 acre tract (V.M.S. No. 1425) for Capt. Hollman Minnis. Apparently, Capt. Dowse chose to relocate his land elsewhere during that summer. Massie and his crew worked until late autumn. On October 27, Massie surveyed another 1000 acre tract (V.M.S. No. 1389) for Capt. Abraham Kirkpatrick south of his baseline and on a different basis of bearings. Next, in what can only be characterized as a mental error on Massie’s part, V.M.S. No. 1396 was surveyed on part of the land vacated by Capt. Dowse. Massie began the survey of No. 1396 at the northeast corner of V.M.S. No. 1389 and measured easterly. When completed on October 27, No. 1396 overlapped part of V.M.S. No. 971 as surveyed for Dr. Knight. Colonel Richard C. Anderson in the Principal Surveyor’s office in Louisville held the “first in time-first in right” principle and Dr. Knight received his entire 1000 acres. Lieutenant William Semple received the residue of his Survey No. 1396. Later surveys by deputies Lucas Sullivant and Benjamin Hough of Survey No. 2442 in 1801 and 1816 respectively were located around Survey No. 1396.

117

118

Figure 4-8

Chapter Four: The Virginia Military District

422, running up the river to the main fork, thence up the west fork and from the beginning with Overton’s line for the quantity___.”55 On this 1000-acre tract, Sullivant laid out his new town [after deputy surveyor Nathaniel Massie submitted a survey on October 28, 1796 to Colonel Anderson.] President Washington signed the patent on March 20, 1800. This was the Virginia system of certification to warrant, to survey, and then finally to a patent signed by the President. Only with the patent firmly in one’s hands was the title clear and guaranteed by the United States and Virginia. Virginia had made the process so complicated that even President George Washington became a victim of the complexity of the proper sequence of gaining title to western lands. Washington had amassed claims amounting to 3100 acres for his service to Virginia in the French and Indian War. He sent his warrants to Colonel O’Bannon in 1787 and they were satisfied by three surveys in what is now Clermont County. Washington’s tracts were V.M.S. No. 1650 for 839 acres, V.M.S. No. 1765 for 1235 acres, and V.M.S. No. 1775 for 977 acres. By mistake, these surveys were returned for patent to Richmond and never sent to the War Department. Washington, fearing that the title of his land was not being processed properly, contacted Colonel Anderson who assured him all was fine. Washington evidently believed that he had fulfilled all the requirements necessary for title to the land, because he valued these tracts at five dollars per acre in his will. On May 20, 1806 deputy surveyor Joseph Kerr located other warrants on the Washington’s surveys. Colonel John Neville, who had died July 30, 1803, made Survey No. 4847 which completely covered Washington’s Survey No. 1650. On the same day, Colonel Neville also covered Washington’s Survey No. 1765 for 1235 acres. Henry Massie submitted a survey to cover Washington’s Survey No. 1775 for 977 acres of land also on May 20. Washington’s heirs sought compensation from Congress for $154,795.32. Relief bills were introduced in Congress but died in committee.56 Congress, upon hearing of this matter, enacted legislation which prohibited the making of any survey over a previously surveyed location. This famous proviso of March 3, 1807, was set forth in Jackson vs. Clark, 1st Peters, by United States Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall.57 Even though Virginia reserved the land, the patents had to be signed by the President of the United States, the office that Washington held in the year 1789. After the survey had been made, a copy certified by the Principal Surveyor and accompanied by the warrant or warrants thus covered, was sent to the Secretary of War (later the General Land Office) for patent. The first US Patent for land in the Virginia Military District bears the date of February 20, 1796. If the Secretary of War was satisfied that all the requirements of Virginia and US laws had been fulfilled, he would cause a deed to be issued from his office, to be 55.  B.L.M. Document No. 850, Survey 10/28/1796, Patent Issue Date 3/20/1800, 1000 acres granted to Lt. Robert Vance. Series 4601, Reel GR 8476, Virginia Military Survey Book A, p. 289, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio. 56. Hutchinson, The Bounty Lands of the American Revolution in Ohio, 128–129. 57.  37 U. S. 264 and 12 Pet. 264, involving V.M.S. No. 4467 for 2666 acres.

119

120

Figure 4-9

Chapter Four: The Virginia Military District

signed by the President of the United States. Not until the claimant received this patent did he have clear title to his land. Even though the process began as a Commonwealth of Virginia affair, it ended as a federal matter when the patent was issued by the President of the United States. In late autumn of 1797 Sullivant led a party of settlers up the Big Darby Creek and laid out the town of North Liberty. The large-scale town had 209 in-lots and 116 out-lots.58 Because this area was in Ross County at that time, the plat of North Liberty was recorded in Chillicothe.59 As the veterans from Virginia pushed the settlement of the military reservation northerly, they came to the Indian Boundary Line and were forced to stop their locations. All lands northerly of this line were set aside by General Wayne’s treaty as Indian lands. Sullivant surveyed several 1000-acre tracts south of the Indian Boundary Line in early spring of 1799. These tracts once again were rectangular as Sullivant measured off the Indian Boundary Line at right angles.60 In the field notes of these surveys, Sullivant, McArthur, and Walter Dun all used the term Indian Boundary Line in reference to Ludlow’s line. In 1799, the Wyandots led by Chief Tarhe had a village on the site of Zanesfield which they called Zanestown in honor of Chief Tarhe’s son-in-law Isaac Zane. The Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket had a village on the site of Bellefontaine. Three miles north of that town was the village of Chief Buckongahelas and the Delawares. The Shawnees had a village at Lewistown on the Great Miami and one at Wapaghkonnetta named for a great chief of that tribe. Colonel James McPherson was in charge of the Lewistown Reserve until 1830. Lucas Sullivant and his party worked among a considerable number of Indians with no problems due in large part to Isaac Zane, who served as a chainman for this survey.61 It was not until after General McArthur’s treaties in 1817 at the Foot of the Rapids of the Miami of the Lake and in 1818 at St. Mary’s that the remainder of the Virginia Military Reserve was opened for settlement.62 Many of the Virginia Military Surveys northerly of the Indian Boundary Line are based on bearings similar to that of Ludlow’s line. On January 3, 1821 deputy surveyor Samuel Forrer submitted to Colonel Richard C. Anderson surveys of three one-thousand-acre parcels (V.M.S. Nos. 9881, 9903, and 9928). Forrer, whose surveys bounded the Indian Boundary Line and the Robert’s Line of 1812, used a bearing on the former as South 78 degrees West. Survey Nos. 10122, 10248 and 10249 were combined for 1094.66 acres at the intersection of the Greenville Treaty Line 58.  Pliny A. Durant, History of Union County, Ohio, vol. 1 (Chicago: W. H. Beers & Co., 1883), p. 279. 59.  Ross County Recorder’s Office, Volume II, page 79, Chillicothe, Ohio. 60.  Virginia Military Survey Book A, pp. 484–493, Series 4601, Ohio Historical Society. V.M.S. Nos. 3320, 3321, 3322, 3323, and 3324 refer to the Indian Boundary Line as having a bearing of South 80 degrees West. Sullivant’s survey lines originate at the Boundary Line and run South 10 degrees East. 61.  William Henry Perrin, J.H. Battle, History of Logan County, Ohio: containing a History of the State of Ohio (Chicago: O.L. Baskin & Company, 1880), p. 204. Isaac Zane was the younger brother of Ebenezer Zane. 62.  A quick look at the Union County Engineer’s map reveals this fact. Treaty Line Road and Boundary Line Road, which follows Ludlow’s Greenville Treaty Line of 1797, separate Washington and Jackson Townships from York and Claibourne Townships.

121

122

Figure 4-10

Chapter Four: The Virginia Military District

and the Robert’s Line of 1812. Deputy surveyor Thomas J. McArthur surveyed the tract during December 1820. His notes state, On the waters of the Big Miami, beginning at three white oaks at the Southeast corner of the Shawnee reserve at Lewistown where the Robert’s line crosses the Greenville Treaty line, thence with said line N 78 E, 400 poles, crossing a small branch at 146 poles, to two red oaks and two white oaks; thence N 12 W, 400 poles, crossing a prairie from 240 to 370 poles, to a bur oak; thence S 78 W, 488 poles to two white oaks and a hickory in Robert’s line; thence with said line S 24 W, 407 poles crossing two branches, to the beginning.63

McArthur and Forrer surveyed many of the tracts in today’s Union and Logan Counties. These tracts reveal an attempt to be rectangular with an orderly progression of survey numbers in most cases.

The L udlow Line

vs .

The R obert ’s Line

The original description of the Virginia Military Reserve claimed all the land north of the Ohio River between the Little Miami River and the Scioto River. The northerly line was to be a line drawn from the origin of the Little Miami to the origin of the Scioto. In 1783 Virginia used Thomas Hutchins’ map of the territory to define its military reservation. Hutchins did not show the origins of the two rivers correctly as he had not personally surveyed that area. He appears to have used Lewis Evans’ map of 1755, which was often inaccurate. When Lucas Sullivant and others pushed the surveys northerly in 1798 and 1799, it became clear that the line from the origin of the Little Miami to the origin of the Scioto would not be a northerly line, but rather would be a westerly line of the Virginia Military District. When Israel Ludlow surveyed the Indian Boundary Line in 1797, he encountered what he thought was the beginning of the Scioto, which was at that time a very large swamp. In 1801 Surveyor General Putnam issued a contract to Ludlow to survey the lands between the Miami Rivers north of the Symmes Purchase for the United States Congress. Ludlow, who began the survey in 1802 and continued it the next year, ran a line from the beginning of the Little Miami River North 20 degrees West for 41 miles and 58.25 chains until he reached the Greenville Treaty Line which he had surveyed in 1797. When Ludlow crossed the Treaty Line, Indian police jumped out from behind some bushes and attempted to arrest him for trespassing over the Boundary Line. Therefore Ludlow’s line stopped at the Treaty Line and did not extend to the origin of the Scioto River as planned. This line was surveyed as an integral part of the range and township surveys by Ludlow of the Between the Miami Rivers Survey.64 The Commonwealth of Virginia did not accept the Ludlow Line and even suggested that the boundary to her military reserve should be a line from the origin of the Scioto River to the mouth of the Little Miami River.65 In the meantime, the United States began selling land in the Between the Miami Rivers survey up to Ludlow’s Line. Virginia, acting upon 63.  Virginia Military Survey Book C, p. 283, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, Ohio. 64.  The Field Notes by Ludlow are on file at the Ohio Historical Society in Columbus on Reel GR 8427, Series 4601. 65. Hutchinson, The Bounty Lands of the American Revolution in Ohio, p. 215. 123

124

Figure 4-11

Chapter Four: The Virginia Military District

the presumption that Ludlow’s Line would be abandoned, allowed her deputies, including McArthur, to make locations west of that line. The United States refused to patent these locations based on the Act of March 23, 1804 which had declared Ludlow’s Line as the boundary, if Virginia agreed, which she did not.66 No further effort was made to arrive at an agreement until June 1812, when a joint commission was appointed to survey a mutually agreeable boundary line. Deputy surveyor Charles Roberts of Zanesville was chosen to run the line.67 On June 26, 1812 Roberts commenced his survey at a pond, “being the extreme head water on the main branch of the Scioto River.” 68 Roberts ran a random line South 24 degrees East, fifty-three miles and sixty chains toward the permanent headwater of the Little Miami. He began his true line back to the origin of the Scioto, South 73 degrees West, thirty chains westerly from where Ludlow had started his line in 1803. In December, Roberts ran his line on a bearing of North 24 degrees 30 minutes West. He crossed Buck Creek at thirteen miles. He crossed the Mad River at twenty-eight miles and twenty chains. He crossed Buckengehelas Creek at thirty-nine miles and sixteen chains. He reached the Greenville Treaty Line about four miles westerly from Ludlow’s post. Roberts continued northwesterly twelve miles and fifty-two chains and set a post in a pond, “it being the extreme permanent water on the main branch of the Scioto River.” In 1820 James Heaton connected Roberts’ post to Alexander Holmes’ post set on the northerly line of the Scioto at the southwesterly corner of Township 5 South, Range IX East, South and East. Heaton surveyed South 75 degrees o5 minutes West, 166.86 chains between the posts.69 Virginia refused to agree to this new line and for the next twelve years nothing was done to resolve this dispute. On April 11, 1818 Congress declared that Ludlow’s Line should be the boundary to the Greenville Treaty Line, thence with said line to the Roberts Line and thence with said line to the head of the Scioto. Virginia did not agree, but Josiah Meigs, the Commissioner of the General Land Office, held this description to be law. Duncan McArthur refused to withdraw his Virginia claims. He fought with some success during the next decade all the way to the US Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court, in the case of Doddridge v. Thompson and Wright (arising because the US had also sold land in the disputed area), held that Virginia locations were valid there if they had been made prior to June 26, 1812. As a result of this decision, on May 26, 1824 Congress established a commission of three men to evaluate the lands between the Ludlow and Roberts Lines, held under Virginia military warrants. Duncan McArthur owned 13,375 acres in the disputed area and the commission estimated their value to be $60,940.25.70 McArthur agreed to release his claims to the United States for that amount. 66. Hutchinson, The Bounty Lands of the American Revolution in Ohio, p. 214. 67.  Charles Roberts was also the Sheriff of Muskingum County. 68.  American State Papers, Public Lands, No. 210, January 19, 1813, p. 608. 69.  James Heaton’s field notes, GR 8393, Sub. 3, Twp. 5 South, Range VIII East, Series 4601, Ohio Historical Society. 70. Hutchinson, The Bounty Lands of the American Revolution in Ohio, pp. 215–216.

125

126

Figure 4-12

-~ield ~ o/a

t:ne nvn?;; cv~ o/the~~~ um~ o~~ o/the 2 ~ o/ofone_, 1810_, f/fl edabk~ tk ttM