USA > Ohio > Hamilton County > History of Hamilton County, Ohio, with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 10
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Shortly after the action of the board of treasury agree- ing to the proposed Miami purchase, Thomas Hutchins, then geographer of the United States, offered Israel Lud- low, a young surveyor from New Jersey, an appointment to survey the boundary of the tract, "being assured," he wrote, "of your abilities, diligence, and integrity." He was also commissioned to survey the Ohio company's purchase, and received an order from the Secretary of War on the frontier posts for sufficient troops to serve as an escort into the wilderness. He accepted the appoint- ment, and made repeated application for escorts to Major Zeigler and Generals Harmar and St. Clair; but without success, on account of the weakness of the garrisons, until October 21, 1791, when St. Clair gave him a ser- geant and fifteen men. With these he accomplished the survey of the Ohio company's boundaries, but, he writes, "with the loss of six of the escort, and leaving in the woods all my pack-horses and their equipage, and being obliged to make a raft of logs to descend the Ohio as far as Limestone, from opposite the mouth of the Great Sandy river." At Fort Washington he now applied to Major Zeigler, commandant, for an escort on the Miami survey, but could get none, and undertook the work, in the winter of 1791-2, with simply the protection of three woodsmen to serve as spies and give notice of approach-
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
ing danger. He 'went with these a hundred miles up the Great Miami, through deep snow and severely cold weather, during which his men had their feet frozen and were unable to hunt for the supply of the expedition; and he consequently returned. When the season moder- ated, he made another attempt to run the boundaries, with but three armed men in the party; but was fright- ened back by signs of Indians, and was again denied an escort at Fort Washington. By May 5, 1792, Ludlow could only report to the Government that "I now have the satisfaction to present to you the whole of the survey of the Ohio and part of the Miami purchases executed agreeably to instructions." The full commission was, however, finally executed by Colonel Ludlow, and in good shape. He was subsequently the surveyor of the original site of Cincinnati, in which he was also a joint proprietor.
Messrs. Dayton and Marsh, representing the Symmes company, concluded a contract with the treasury com- missioners May 15, 1788, for two millions of acres, in two separate and equal tracts. The judge in July made up his mind to take but one million-acre tract, and, after his departure for the west, Dayton and Marsh arranged a new contract with the Government for that amount of land between the Miamis, but its eastern boundary begin- ning at a line twenty miles up the Ohio from the mouth of the Great Miami. This agreement seems now absurd, in the light of knowledge that less than six hundred thou- sand acres are included in the entire tract between the rivers south of a line from the headwaters of the Little Miami due west to the other stream, and that, between the boundaries now agreed upon, less than half the quantity of land was enclosed that had been solemnly bargained for.
On the fourteenth of July, 1788, Judge Symmes again addressed the treasury board, expressing his desire "to adhere to the banks of both Miamis in the boundaries of the one million acres," but asked permission to enter the tract with a party of settlers and cause a survey to be made and an accurate map of the country to be prepared, "on which you may delineate your pleasure. Until we have better knowledge," he adds, reasonably enough, "I conceive any further stipulations of boundaries would be rather premature." The board made no concession, however, and withheld the desired permission for him to enter upon the premises. Confiding in the ultimate decis- ions of Congress, he nevertheless, as Stites and other purchasers had already started for the Miamis, and part of his own following had been equipped and had crossed the Delaware en route westward, set out with a consider- able caravan, reached Pittsburgh August 20th, and the mouth of the Great Miami on the twenty-second of Sep- tember. From here he explored the country as far up as the north side of the fifth range of townships, and re- turned to Limestone, from which he did not set out with his party to. make permanent settlement at North Bend until the twenty-ninth of the next January.
Limestone was still a small place. Only three years before, General Butler, one of the commissioners to ne- gotiate treaties with the Indian tribes, passed it with a large party, and thus recorded his impressions in his diary .
This I think to be a settlement of fine land, and believe the people will do very well, provided they have peace. There are about fifteen good cabins for families, kitchens, etc., included, and twenty-five houses. Here is a small creek, and from here a good wagon-road to Lexington and other places. The people seem determined to defend themselves; every man walks with his rifle in his hand, so enured are they to alarm. They are very civil, but possess that roughness of manner so univer- sally attendant on seclusion from general society.
Meanwhile, though, the settlement of Columbia had been made by Major Stites and others, and surveying parties sent out by Symmes to begin the survey of the proposed Purchase, a party on each of the Miamis, each to move north to points sixty miles in a straight line from the Ohio. The Losantiville (Cincinnati) colony had also made its settlement opposite the mouth of the Licking. The occupation of the Purchase had fully begun. Con- gress took alarm at the departure of Symmes before the closing of the business, fearing that he would get posses- sion of the tract and set the Government at defiance. Judge Burnet, in his Notes on the settlement of the Northwestern Territory, says a resolution was offered in the body, ordering Colonel Harmar to dispossess him and pay the expenses of any military operations thus made nec- essary, out of the moneys deposited for his first payment ; but that, through the representations of Dr. Boudinot and Captain Dayton, two of his associates and also members of Congress, the message was withdrawn. Certain it is, a reso- lution was moved in Congress a month after Symmes left, repealing the several acts of the previous October, by which the board of treasury was authorized to contract for the sale of western territory. It was referred to a commit- tee, who consented to waive their report of the resolu- tion back with recommendation of its passage, upon the intercession of the gentlemen named, together with Dan- iel Marsh, also of the East Jersey association. These persons urged its suppression mainly upon the ground that Judge Symmes, before departure, had completed his first payment in certificates and "army rights," and that in accepting it the United States were as firmly bound as if a contract had been signed. They agreed, in consideration of the failure to report the resolution, to sign a contract with the Government for the Purchase, with the limits prescribed by the board in the letter of June 16th. Symmes had given Marsh a power of attorney at Pittsburgh, and, although technical objection was made to it, a tripartite contract was finally concluded October 15, 1788,* after many difficulties and disputes with the treasu- ry board, between the board representing the Government as party of the first part, Dayton and Marsh as party of the second, and Symmes and his associates as party of the third part, for one million of acres in the Miami country, to be bounded as insisted upon by the commis- sioners and agreed to by Dayton, Boudinot, and Marsh.
The contract stipulated that if Symmes, of the party of the third part, should neglect or refuse to execute it, the same should inure to the benefit of the parties of the second part, who, in that case, covenanted to perfect it themselves. It was further stipulated that the association should have the privilege of selling and locating as much
* This instrument was not entered in the official records of Hamilton county until March 17, 1821.
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
of the remainder of the Purchase as they chose to take at the contract price-sixty-six and two-thirds cents per acre, payable in cirtificates of Federal indebtedness. These could then be bought for five shillings on the pound, Pennsylvania currency-so that the original cash price of lands in the Miami Purchase, paid by Symmes & Company was but fifteen pence, or sixteen and two- thirds cents per acre. In pursuance of this provision the community at large was publicly invited to become associated with the company and avail themselves of this privilege. The terms of this offer bore a general and in some respects close resemblance to the original "Terms of Sale and Settlement," issued at Trenton in November, 1787. To induce them to do so without loss of time, it was stipulated that after the first of May then ensuing the price of the land should be one dollar "proclamation money," but that it would be still further increased as the settlement of the country would justify. It was ex- pressly promised that all moneys received on those sales, above the Congress price, should be deposited with the register and expended in opening roads and erecting bridges for the benefit of the settlements. It was also stipulated that a register should be appointed by the as- sociates to superintend the location of the land and to receive and apply the surplus money to those purposes. This provision, however, was neglected by the company, Mr. Symmes himself acting practically as register, receiv- ing and using all moneys paid in after as well as before the raising of the price. ' The consideration money was to be paid to the parties of the second and third parts in six semi-annual equal instalments, and they were to re- ceive patents for proportionate parts of the lands. Pur- chasers could pay one-seventh of the amount in military land warrants, issued by the Government to the Revolu- tionary officers and soldiers; and, for the convenience of those who wished to do so, Colonel Dayton was appointed to receive such payments. Subsequently the third entire range of townships in the Purchase was conveyed to Day- ton, in trust for persons holding these warrants; it hence was called the Military range. It is now in Butler and Warren connties. Every locator was required to place himself or some other person on the land he purchased, within two years from entering his location, or in some station of defence, beginning improvement on every tract if it could be done with safety, and con- tinuing the improvement seven years, if not disturbed by Indians, on penalty of forfeiture of one-sixth of each tract. This fractional part the register was to lay off at the northeast corner in a regular square, and grant to any settler who should first apply and perform the require- ments. The object of this was to secure actual inhabi- tants, who would open up the country, and to make sure of at least one bona fide settler on each section. The tract thus held in abeyance was commonly called the "forfeiture." No register, as before noted, was appointed, though the forfeiture tracts were reserved; and the busi- ness was otherwise somewhat loosely conducted, so that it is considered doubtful whether any "forfeiture" title in the purchase was free from incumbrance; but when they came into litigation, the courts and juries took liberal
views of the equities of the case and sustained the settlers.
Symmes and his associates were to survey the Purchase at their own expense, and adopted a plan which was more economical than accurate. The principal surveyor-at first John Filson, and, after his death at the hands of the Indians, Colonel Israel Ludlow-was instructed to run a line east and west from one Miami river to the other, sufficiently north to avoid the bends of the Ohio, for a ' base line, and to plant stakes every mile. The assistant surveyors were to run meridian lines by compass from each of these stakes, and plant a stake at the end of each mile for a section corner. Purchasers were then allowed to complete surveys by running east and west lines be- tween the corners, at their own expense. This was, of course, a very defective plan, and it resulted that scarcely two sections could be found in the purchase of the same shape or of equal contents. Some were too narrow, others too wide. It was doubted whether there was one in the entire tract of which the corresponding corners, either on the north or south side, were in the same east and west line. In some instances, says Judge Burnet, the corner on one meridian would prove to be ten, twenty, and sometimes thirty rods north or south of the corresponding corner on the other meridian. This irreg- ularity was very much the subject of complaint. Three or four years afterward, when many of the sections had been occupied and improved, Judge Symmes adopted a plan to remove the difficulty, which rather increased it. He caused the meridian line, part of which formed the eastern boundary of the site of old Cincinnati, to be re- measured, and new stakes to be set at the terminus of each mile. This line he then declared to be the stand- ard, and directed purchasers and settlers to run their lines anew east and west from these stakes, and re-estab- lish their corners at the points of intersection on the me- ridians. This plan, had it been persisted in, would have changed every original corner in the purchase. Some of the land owners followed the judge's directions, and bounded their possessions by the new lines thus estab- lished. Much confusion and trouble resulted; but not for a great while, since a decision was presently obtained from the supreme court of the State, which confirmed the old corners on the ground that the original surveys had been made under authority of an act of Congress and accepted at the treasury department, and were there- fore final and obligatory, and not to be disturbed by either party. The territorial lines of many parts of Ham- ilton county therefore remain to this day exceedingly un- even. The county maps show its northern line, for ex- ample, about as angular, in places, as a Virginia rail fence.
About the same time a similar difficulty arose as to the boundaries of the Military range; but in this case also the original surveys were confirmed by the supreme court.
In the former case, as some sections were too large and others too small, Judge Symmes adopted a rule that he would pay the purchasers four dollars an acre for the amount that their land was short of the quantity bar- gained for, and require the payment of a like sum per acre for those who had secured too much by the incor- rect surveys. Notwithstanding all his efforts to obviate
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
the difficulties, however, they continued to multiply, re- sulting in much litigation, kept up in some cases even after the decision of the supreme court.
The contract of October, 1788, required the payment of the purchase money to be completed within three years after the boundary lines of the entire tract had been surveyed and plainly marked by the geographer of the ' United States or some other person appointed for the purpose. The last instalment fell due early in 1792, when only the first and part of the second payment had been made; and so the entire contract became liable to forfeiture. Symmes had sold not only in the purchase as defined by the contract, but also most of the land be- tween his east line and the Little Miami. In the spring of that year he petitioned Congress to allow the altera- tion of the contract extending the eastern boundary to that river, as originally asked. It was fortunately granted by an act of April 12, 1792, and by this a large number of innocent purchasers were secured in the quiet posses- sion of their lands. It also provided for the reservation of fifteen acres to the Government, near the first town plat of Cincinnati, upon which Fort Washington was afterwards built. Judge Symmes then petitioned for a law authorizing the President to issue to him a patent for so much of the purchase as he had paid and could pay for. This, too, was allowed May 5, 1792, and two years thereafter he visited Philadelphia, then the seat of Gov- ernment, settled with the Treasury department, found he had paid for two hundred and forty-eight thousand five hundred and forty acres, and received a patent signed by President Washington and dated September 30, 1794, for three hundred and eleven thousand six hundred and eighty-two acres, which included total reservations of sixty-three thousand one hundred and forty-two acres, fifteen acres for Fort Washington, and all sections or lots numbered eight, eleven, twenty-six, and twenty- nine, for such purposes as Congress might direct. All these, including the Fort Washington reserve, were re- leased and put into the market by Congress in 1808. The remainder of the original Miami Purchase under the contract of course reverted to the Government. Sections sixteen were also reserved for public schools, and the equivalent of a section at or near the mouth of the Great Miami river, probably for a fortificaton, but afterwards sold to the Symmes' company ; and one full township, to be lo- cated as near the center of the tract as possible, "for the purpose of establishing an academy and other public schools and seminaries of, learning." The boundaries of the tract were substantially defined as the Great and Little Mi- ami rivers, the Ohio, and a parallel of latitude to be drawn between the two former rivers, so as to comprise three hun. dred and eleven thousand six hundred and eighty-two acres. These enclosed, of course, all of Hamilton county between the rivers, and parts of the present counties of Butler and Warren to the northern boundary of the third range of townships, on an east and west line several miles north of the subsequent site of Lebanon. The tracts sold by Symmes north of this line were allowed by the Government to be regularly pre-empted and entered at Cincinnati by the purchasers, they taking the usual
patents therefor at two dollars per acre. This re- sult was not reached without long delay and much dif- ficulty. Doubts of his right to sell lands so far to the northward had previously harassed purchasers, and they finally insisted that he should take steps for their security. They wanted to petition Congress, but he dissuaded them, went again to Philadelphia in the fall of 1796, and spent the following winter and spring in efforts to induce the Government to take his offered money and make him a further grant in the Purchase, which would cover his troublesome sales. The arrangement of 1792 had apparently left open the contract of 1788, as to the remainder of the million acres bargained for; and, even so late as 1797, Symmes and his agents continued to offer lands in the fourth, fifth, sixth, and even the tenth range of townships "in the Miami Purchase." Congress finally decided, however, that the law of 1792 and the settlement and patent of 1794 constituted a full adjust- ment of his claims and a full performance by the Gov- ernment of its obligations toward the company, and that he had no further rights under the contract. The situa- tion of his grantees outside the Purchase was now despe- rate. Many had paid in full, all had in part, and most had spent much money and labor in improvements, which they were now liable to lose, together with their lands. Several towns had been laid out and settled upon this tract, mills built, orchards planted, and other im- portant beginnings made. Of all these there was danger the rightful proprietors would be dispossessed, without remuneration. Congress was memorialized, and was generous in its provisions for relief. By an act passed in 1799 all persons having made written land contracts with Symmes before April Ist of that year, outside his patent, were secured preference over all other purchasers from the Government. Two years thereafter the right of pre- emption was extended to all purchasers from Symmes prior to the first of January, 1800. The extension of credit by Congress was so liberal that many were enabled to complete their payments from the produce of the farms; and all, it is believed, by the indulgence of the Government from year to year, were at last made secure in their titles.
The act of Congress March 3, 1801, provided in ef- fect that any person who had contracted in writing, be- fore the first of January, 1800, with Judge Symmes, or any of his associates, or had made payment to them for the purchase of any land between the Miami rivers, within the limits of the survey of the Purchase made by Ludlow, and not within the tract which Symmes had re- ceived, his patent should be entitled to preference in purchasing said land from the United States, at the then fixed price of public lands, two dollars per acre. Under another section of the act President Jefferson appointed Messrs. John Reily and William Goforth to act with General Findlay, receiver of public moneys at Cincin- nati, as commissioners to hear and determine the rights of claimants under the law. A year did not suffice for the settlement of all claims, and by another law of May 1, 1802, the provisions of the former act were extended twelve months longer. Mr. Reily was re-appointed com-
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HISTORY OF HAMILTON COUNTY, OHIO.
missioner; Dr. John Sellman was also appointed; and the two, with General Findlay, as commissioner ex officio, closed up the business within the year.
The following copy of the letter of transmittal ac- companying the commission to Dr. Goforth, a well-known member of the board, will be read here with interest:
TREASURY DEPARTMENT, October 9, 1801.
SIR :-- The President of the United States having thought proper to appoint you a commissioner, under the fourth section of an act of Congress, passed March 3, 1801, entitled "an act giving a right of pre-emption to certain persons who have contracted with John Cleves Symmes, or his associates, for lands lying between the Miami rivers, in the territory of the United States northwest of the Ohio," I en- close to you, herewith, a commission for that purpose.
The duties to be performed, and the compensation to be allowed to you therefor, being fully detailed in the act above recited, I shall only remark that, as the commissioners will not arrive in time to admit of the three weeks' notice required by the law, all practicable means should be employed to apprise the parties concerned of the appoint- ment of the commissioners, as well through the medium of the news- paper published at Cincinnati, as by hand-bills posted up in the neigh- boring districts. As it will be proper, however, that the commissioners should act in concert in this, and all other matters confided to them, I . beg leave to recommend that a meeting be immediately held for that purpose. I am, very respectfully, sir,
Your obedient servant, ALBERT GALLATIN.
WILLIAM GOFORTH, ESQ., at Cincinnati.
THE "COLLEGE TOWNSHIP"
also gave Judge Symmes and others much embarrassment. He had sold all or most of the township proposed to be reserved for academic purposes, which, originally advertised in his "Terms of Sale and Settlement," was one of the best tracts in the purchase. It is now Green township-the only regular thirty-six section township in the county. Strictly, the Purchase was not entitled by law to a college township, since the ordinance under which the early sales of public lands were made only allowed it when a purchase of two millions or more of acres was made. When Symmes' associates and agents reduced the Purchase to one million, he accordingly gave up the idea of a college township, erased the entry of it which had previously been marked out upon his map, and sold its lands with the rest. But when the bills for the change of boundaries and the grant of the patent were before Congress, Dayton had secured the insertion of a provision for such township, for "an academy, or other school of learning, to be located within five years in nearly the center of the patent as might be." There was now not an entire township left unsold in the Pur- chase. Symmes, in 1799, offered the Government the second township of the second fractional range; but that had also been sold in large part, and the offer was rejected successively by the Federal and Territorial Governments, the State legislature, and then Congress again, to whom he in turn offered it, holding previous sales from it to be void. After the State gov- ernment was formed Congress granted the legislature an- other township, or thirty-six sections, from the public lands, in lieu of one in the Purchase, which was selected by a commission appointed in 1803, from unsold lands west of the Great Miami. These form the pecuniary foundation -such as it is, through mismanagement and waste-of Miami University, established by the legislature in 1809,
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