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CHAPTER XXVI.

THE SETTLEMENT OF THE NORTH WESTERN TERRITORY. -ORDINANCE OF 1787.

To dispose of the soil and to determine the political institutions of the valley between the Alleghanies and the Mississippi, was recognized by the Congress of the Confederation, as a grave and urgent duty. The members exaggerated the value of the lands, as a resource of revenue and credit to the government; but there was no error, either of purpose or policy, in their political regulations for the undeveloped empire of the west.

Still, the necessity of the case was substituted for any direct constitutional authority. The Articles of Confederation conferred upon Congress the power of "regulating the trade and managing all affairs with the Indians, not members of any of the States, provided that the legislative right of any State within its own limits be not infringed or violated," and of admitting other colonies into the confederacy with the assent of nine States by their delegates; but we look in vain for any other warrant of the legislation by Congress for the disposition and government of the western territory. The power to raise a revenue, from which the requisite implication might have been derived, consisted only of a right to make requisitions upon the respective States without the authority to enforce their compliance. But, in the course of events, Congress had acquired a public domain, and the proposition that checked or answered cavil, was, that the

right to acquire, necessarily implied the right to dispose of the soil and protect the settlers by territorial governments.

The intrusions of settlers forced a public system of survey and sale upon the attention of Congress. On the 20th of May, 1785, "an ordinance for ascertaining the mode of disposing of lands in the Western Territory" was perfected by Congress, and became the foundation of the existing system. A corps of surveyors-one from each State, and appointed by Congress-were placed under the direction of Thomas Hutchins, Geographer of the United States, and instructed to divide the territory into townships of six miles square, by lines running due north and south, and others crossing these. at right angles, as far as practicable. The first line running north and south was to begin on the Ohio River, at a point due north from the western termination of the southern boundary of Pennsylvania, and the first line running east and west was to begin at the same point and extend through the territory. The townships, whole or fractional, were to be numbered from south to north-the ranges of townships progressively westward. The townships were to be subdivided into thirty-six sections, each containing a mile square, or six hundred and forty acres. The survey has since been carried to half sections, quarter sections and eighths, and in some cases to sixteenths.

When the survey of seven ranges of townships was completed, plats were to be returned to the Board of Treasury, and the Secretary of War was to reserve, by lot, oneseventh part for the use of the late continental army, and so of every subsequent seven ranges, when surveyed and returned. Lots eight, eleven, twenty-six and twenty-nine in each township were reserved by the United States for future sale: lot sixteen for the maintenance of public schools

within the township, and "also one-third part of all gold, silver, lead and copper mines to be sold or otherwise disposed of as Congress should direct."

With these exceptions, the townships were to be drawn in the name of the different States, in the proportion of the latest requisitions by Congress upon them, and sold at public vendue, after a prescribed notice, by the commissioners of the loan office of the several States, in the following manner: The township or fractional part of a township number one, in the first range, to be sold entire; and number two in the same range, by lots: and thus in alternate order through the whole of the first range. In the second range, the first township to be sold in lots, the second entire: and so alternately through the subsequent ranges. "Provided, That none of the lands within the said territory be sold under the price of one dollar the acre, to be paid in specie, or loan office certificates reduced to specie value by the scale of depreciation, or certificates of liquidated debts of the United States, including interest, besides the expense of the survey and other charges thereon, which are rated at thirty-six dollars, the township in specie or certificates as aforesaid, and so in the same proportion for a fractional part of a township, or of a lot, to be paid at the time of sales; on failure of which repayment, the lands shall again be offered for sale."

If lands remained unsold by a State after eighteen months, they were to be returned to the Board of Treasury, and sold as Congress might direct.

This ordinance also gave the mode for dividing among the continental soldiers the lands set apart for them: reserved three townships adjacent to Lake Erie for refugees from Canada and Nova Scotia, on account of their devotion to the

American cause:1 secured to the Moravian Indians the towns of Gnadenhutten, Schoenbrun and Salem on the Muskingum, and such adjacent lands as would, in the judgment of the geographer, be sufficient for them to cultivate: and excluded from sale the territory between the Little Miami and Scioto, in accordance with the provisions made by Virginia in her deed of cession in favor of her own troops.2

On the 15th of June, 1785, Congress instructed the commissioners empowered to conclude a treaty with the western Indians, to warn off "several disorderly persons who had crossed the Ohio River and settled upon unappropriated lands,” which was industriously, however ineffectually, done by General Richard Butler, on his journey to the conference with the Shawanese at the mouth of the Great Miami.

Congress instructed Hutchins and his body of surveyors, by a resolution of May 9th, 1786, not to proceed with their survey further north than the east and west line (the extension of the southern boundary of Pennsylvania) mentioned in the ordinance of May 20th, 1785. A year afterwards, Congress directed that the sale of lands, after the deduction of one-seventh for army bounties, should be held at the place where Congress was in session.

The bounties to the officers and soldiers of the Revolution, who had continued in service until the close of the war, or until discharged, and the representatives of those who were slain by the enemy, had been granted by resolutions of Congress, dated September 16th and 18th, 1776, and August

1) This tract was afterwards located eastwardly from the Scioto River, near and including the city of Columbus.. It is a narrow strip of country, 4 miles broad from north to south, and 48 miles in length-having the United States twenty ranges of military or army lands north, and twentytwo ranges of Congress lands south, and consisting of 100,000 acres.

2) Land Laws of the United States, edition of 1828, p. 349.

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12th and September 22d, 1780, and were as follows: a Major General, eleven hundred acres; Brigadier General, eight hundred and fifty; Colonel, five hundred; Lieutenant Colonel, four hundred and fifty; Major, four hundred; Captain, three hundred; Lieutenant, two hundred; Ensign, one hundred and fifty; each non-commissioned officer and soldier, one hundred. The possession of these and other claims upon the government of the Union, by the disbanded and often impoverished soldiery of the Revolution, became a prominent agency in the settlement of Ohio. In June, 1783, peace having been proclaimed, General Rufus Putnam, of Massachusetts, forwarded to Washington a memorial from a number of persons holding these claims for an appropriation of western lands, which Washington transmitted to Congress, but the States had not made their cessions, and Congress was obliged to postpone the consideration of the subject. In July, 1785, Benjamin Tupper, a Revolutionary officer of Massachusetts, was appointed a surveyor of western lands, and during the year visited Pittsburgh. The survey was interrupted by Indian troubles, and he went no further, but returned with such impressions of the Ohio country that Putnam and himself united in a publication, dated January 10, 1786, which proposed an association for the purchase and settlement of Ohio lands. Whoever desired to promote the scheme were invited to meet in their respective counties of Massachusetts, (enumerating the places) on the 15th of February, and choose a delegate or delegates to meet at "the Bunch of Grapes tavern, in Boston, Essex."

This convention assembled on the 1st of March, and consisted of the following persons: Winthrop Sargent and John Mills, of Suffolk county; Manassah Cutler, of Essex; John

3) Land Laws of the United States, p. 336.

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