(RETURN TO THE TITLE PAGE)



HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY - 223


CHAPTER III


EXPLORATIONS—SURVEYS—LAND GRANTS.


THE first white man on record who explored the Miami region, and probably passed within or near the present limits of this county, was Christopher Gist, agent and explorer for the Ohio Land Company of Virginia. Traveling with horses and accompanied by one or two woodmen, Gist passed into the interior of what is now the State of Ohio, in the winter of 1750-51. He had a conference with the Miami Indians, at Piqua, their chief town, and thence passed down the Miami Valley to the Ohio. At that time the buffalo, whose original range seems to have been nearly the whole of North America, was an inhabitant of the Miami country, and was seen by Gist in droves of thirty or forty. " Nothing is wanted," he wrote, " but cultivation to make this a most delightful country." This journey was made eighteen years before Daniel Boone first saw the valley of the Kentucky.


A knowledge of the fertility of the soil and delightful character of the region of the Miamis was spread abroad by various means, one of the most important of which was the reports of the soldiers in the campaigns against the Miami Indian towns. Col. John Bowman, in 1779, Gen. George Rogers Clark, in 1780 and in 1782, and Gen. Harmar, in 1790, all marched from the site of Cincinnati northward through the Miami Valley. Gen. Harmar certainly passed through the entire county of Warren from southwest to northeast. His route was readily traced at the beginning of this century and passed north of Mason, near Lebanon, and crossed the Little Miami not far from the mouth of Caesar's Creek


Adventurous whites, too, singly or in small parties, had traversed this whole region years before the first settlements were made. In the record of land entries in this county, reference is made to a beech tree on the bank of the Little Miami, and then supposed to be six miles below the mouth of Caesar's Creek, marked Robert Connerly, R. A., 1787. As the entry (No. 737) of the land on which this tree stood was made August 7, 1787, the tree must have been marked prior to that date. It was six years afterward found by Gen. Massie with the same mark upon it, while he was surveying lands east of the Little Miami. There was seen sixty years ago a beech near the mouth of Caesar's Creek marked W. G., 17085--no doubt intended for 1785. Caesar's Creek and Todd's Fork both received their present names prior to August, 1787.


In the winter and spring of 1787, the Virginia Military District, between the Little Miami and the Scioto, was explored by Maj. John O'Bannon and Arthur Fox, two enterprising surveyors of Kentucky. Their object was to obtain a knowledge of the lands for the purpose of making entries as soon as an office should be opened for entries, which was done on the 1st day of August, 187. They explored the whole extent of country along the Ohio and passed some distance up the Scioto and the Little Miami, and some of the smaller streams which flow into these rivers. It was probably from this exploration that O'Bannon Creek received its name. A white oak tree at the mouth of this steam was marked O'B. Cr. as early as 1787, as is shown by the record of land entries.


Maj. Benjamin Stites was one of the earliest explorers of the region, which became Symmes' Purchase. Some have believed that he was the prime mover


224 - HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.


in the inception of the purchase. According to the narrative of Dr. Ezra Ferris, Benjamin Stites was originally from Essex County, N. J., and, after emigrating to Western Pennsylvania, became a Captain in the militia, and took an active part in the frontier struggles with the Indians. In the spring of 1787, he descended the Ohio from Redstone with a flat-boat load of flour, whisky and other wares, to Limestone Point, now Maysville. Having little success in the disposal of them, he pushed back in the interior to Washington, where a marauding party of Indians ran off some of his horses and stole other property. He organized a pursuing party and followed the trail down the Kentucky shore to a point opposite the mouth of the Little Miami, where he constructed a raft, crossed the Ohio and followed the ,trail up the Little Miami Valley to the vicinity of Old Chillicothe, a few miles north of Xenia. The Indians being in camp there in considerable force, he deemed it prudent to return, and doing so at his leisure he had opportunity to observe the beauty and fertility of the country. On his return to the Ohio he decided to come back to the valley with a colony and make a permanent settlement. Some time afterward he met in Trenton, N. J., Judge John Cleves Symmes, and became interested with him in the grand speculation known as the Miami Purchase. Undoubtedly Symmes received much information from Stites concerning the lands between the Miamis. Maj. Stites became the owner of 10,000 acres near the mouth of the Little Miami. He also received deeds, dated May 14, 1795, for about 10,000 acres of land in the vicinity of the sites of Lebanon and Deerfield and between those points.


According to the author of Western Annals, the exploration of the Miami lands by Stites was made at an earlier date than that given in the preceding paragraph. The statement in Western Annals is that Symmes was led to visit the Miami region "by the representations of Benjamin Stites, of Redstone (Brownsville), who had examined the valleys of the Shawnees soon after the treaty of January, 1786. Symmes found them all and more than all they had been represented to be."


SYMMES' LAND SPECULATION.


No attempts were made to establish permanent settlements in the Miami country until after the Revolutionary war, and after Virginia had generously ceded her Western territory to the General Government in 1784. The projector of the plan for the purchase and settlement of the lands between the Miamis,' was an ex-Member of Congress and Chief Justice of the State of New Jersey— John Cleves Symmes.


This is not the place to give the history of Symmes' Purchase, although the earlier settlers of this county derived their titles from Judge Symmes The whole history of that grand but unfortunate land speculation is fully narrated in Judge Burnet's excellent "Notes on the Northwestern Territory." It is sufficient for our purpose that Symmes proposed to Congress to purchase a tract between the Miamis, supposed to contain 2,000,000 acres; that when his contract was made with Congress, the amount was reduced to 1,000,000; that it was after. war I found that there were but 600,000 acres between the two rivers up as far. as the head-waters of the Little Miami; that Symmes having paid for only half that quantity, received a deed for a tract of 311,682 acres, being the number of acres including school and ministerial lands and other reservations, for which he had made payment. The northern boundary of Symmes' patent is an eastand-west line, passing from a point on the Little Miami a short distance below Freeport to the Great Miami about three miles below Middletown.


Symmes published a pamphlet at Trenton, N. J., November 26, 1787, giving the terms of sale and settlement of the Miami lands. As the lands about the Muskingum had been purchased by a New England Company, Symmes' Pur-


PAGE - 226 - BLANK


>br>


PAGE - 225 - PICTURE OF HENRY DILATUSH


HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY - 227


chase was intended chiefly for the accommodation if the inhabitants of the States west of the Connecticut River. The price of the lands of this purchase was 66 2/3 cents per acre, payable in certificates of debts of the Government and in land-warrants. But as the certificates of debts due from the United States were then worth only one-fourth of their face, the specie price at which Congress sold all the land from Cincinnati to Hamilton and Lebanon—now the most valuable tract in the State—was about 17 cents per acre. The lands were sold to settlers in quantities of not less than 160 acres, and the purchaser was bound to begin improvements within two years or to forfeit one-sixth part of his purchase, which might be given by Symmes to any one who would settle thereon and remain seven years. One penny or the ninetieth of a dollar per acre was to be paid at the time of purchasing the land-warrant to defray the expense of surveying the tract; and one farthing, or the one three hundred and sixtieth of a dollar per acre to defray the expenses of printing the land-warrant and registering the entries. Such were the terms under which some of our fathers contracted for our homes.


Ministers of the Gospel were cordially invited in Symmes' pamphlet to settle in the new country, and were offered the free use of Section 29, set apart in every township for the support of the Gospel. Schoolmasters were offered the free use of Section 16, reserved for the benefit of schools. The policy of setting apart public lands for the support of religion was discontinued by Congress after the adoption of the National Constitution; but the reservation of one section in every township for the support of schools has been continued till the present time in the sale of all the public lands. We thus have in Warren County the anomaly of the churches in one-fourth of the county receiving out of a provision of the old Federal Congress a bounty of from $1 to $2 annually for each church member; while in three-fourths of the county ministerial lands are unknown, and religion is supported only by voluntary contributions. And an experience of more than three-quarters of a century has taught us that the donation of public lands for the support of religion, however well intended, was not wisely made.


ADVENTURES OF EARLY SURVEYING PARTIES.


The surveyors were early at work. The boundaries of Symmes' Purchase under his first contract were surveyed in 1789. East of the Little Miami, John O'Bannon surveyed lands in this county and near the stream that bears his name in March, 1792. And in the month of October in the same year, Gen. Nathaniel Massie, in the midst of the most appalling dangers from the Indians, surveyed and located land-warrants to the amount of 30,000 acres in this county, and chiefly on Caesar's Creek and Todd's Fork. Such were the dangers and hardships under which the early surveys were made in the Virginia Military District, that one-fourth, one third, and sometimes one-half of the tillable land of the entry was paid the surveyor.


In the early surveys the winters were selected as the season most secure, the Indians being in winter quarters. Massie was the most extensive surveyor and land speculator in Ohio at this early day. In his surveys he usually had beside himself three assistant surveyors and six men with each surveyor. The parties all moved with great caution. First went the hunter looking for game and on the watch for the Indians; next, the surveyor, two chainmen and marker; then the pack-horse man with baggage, and, two or three hundred yards in the rear, a watchman, on the trail to guard against an attack from behind. In the spring of 1792, Massie surveyed the bottoms of the east side of the Little Miami as far as the site of Xenia without being molested by the Indians. Some of the foregoing facts are stated on the authority of John McDonald's Life of Gen. Nathaniel Massie. The following extract is from the same work:


228 - HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.


During the winter of 1794-95, Massie prepared a party to enter largely into the surveying business. Nathaniel Beasley, John Beasley and Peter Lee were employed as the assistant surveyors. The party set off from Manchester, well equipped, to prosecute their business, or, should occasion offer, give battle to the Indians. They took the route of Logan's trace, and proceeded to a place called the deserted camp, on Todd's Fork of the Little Miami. At this point they commenced surveying, and surveyed large portions of land on Todd's Fork, and up the Miami to the Chillicothe town, thence up Massie's Creel and Caesar's Creek nearly to their heads. By the time the party had progressed thus far, winter had set in. The ground was covered with a sheet of snow from six to ten inches deep. During the tour, which continued upward of thirty days, the party had no bread. For the first two weeks a pint of flour was distributed to each mess once a day, to mix with the soup in which meat had been boiled. When night came, four fires were made for cooking—that is, one for each mess. Around these fires, till sleeping time arrived, the company spent their time in the most social glee, singing songs and telling stories. When danger was not apparent or immediate, they were as merry a set of men as ever assembled. Resting time arriving, Massie always gave the signal, and the whole party would then leave their comfortable fires, carrying with them their blankets, their firearms, and their little baggage, walking in perfect silence two or three hundred yards from their fires. They would then scrape away the snow and huddle down together for the night. Each mess formed one bed; they would spread down on the ground one half of the blankets, reserving the other half for covering. The covering blankets were fastened together by skewers, to prevent them from slipping apart. Thus prepared, the whole party crouched down together with their rifles in their arms, and their pouches under their heads for pillows; lying spoon fashion, with three heads one way and four the other, their feet extending to about the middle of their bodies. When one turned the whole mess turned, or else the close range would be broken and the cold let in. In this way they lay till broad daylight, no noise and scarce a whisper being uttered during the night. When it was perfectly light, Massie would call up two of the men in whom he had most confidence, and send them to reconnoiter and make a circuit around the fires, lest an ambuscade might be formed by the Indians to destroy the party as they returned to the fires. This was an invariable custom in every variety of weather. Self-preservation required this circumspection." Some time after this, while surveying on Caesar's Creek, his men attacked a party of Indians, and the savages broke and fled.


After the defeat of the Indians by Wayne, the surveyors were not interrupted by the Indians; but on one of their excursions, still remembered as " the starving tour," the whole party, consisting of twenty-eight men, suffered extremely in a driving snow-storm for about four days. They were rn a wilderness, exposed to this severe storm, without hut, tent or covering, and what was still more appalling, without provision and without any road or even track to retreat on, and were nearly one hundred miles from any place of shelter. On the third day of the storm, they luckily killed two wild turkeys, which were boiled and divided into twenty-eight parts, and devoured with great avidity, heads, feet, entrails and all.


The dangers of exploration and survey on the west side of the Little Miami were not less. John Filson, who was interested in laying out Cincinnati and who coined the word Losanteville as the name of the projected city, was killed in the winter of 1788-89. He had gone up the Miami Valley some thirty or forty miles with Judge Symmes and others, and, for some cause not now known, left the party for the purpose of returning to the Ohio, and was murdered by the Indians. In the same winter a surveying party was attacked and two men killed. A surveyor named Abner Hunt was killed in the season of 1790-91.


METHOD OF SURVEY.


No part of Warren County, except the few sections west of the Great Miami, had the benefit of the beautiful and admirable system of public land surveys now followed by the United States Government. The original surveys of both the Virginia Military District and the Miami Purchase were defective, the former without any system whatever; uncertainty, confusion and litigation were the result.


In the Virginia Military District, lands to satisfy the military warrants were located in various geometrical figures and with boundary lines running in every direction, The tract was never laid out into regular townships or sections- The owner of a Virginia military warrant was permitted to locate it in such shape and in whatever place in the district it pleased him, provided the land


HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY - 229


bad not been previously located. The only limitation of the shape of the location was that of a Virginia statute which required the breadth of each survey to be at least one-third of its length in every part, unless the breadth was restricted by mountains, water-courses or previous locations. In consequence of this want of system, there were interferences and encroachments of one land entry upon another, and great difficulty is to-day-experienced in tracing titles in this district.


Symmes' Purchase was laid out in ranges, townships and sections somewhat in the manner of the present system of Government surveys, but in a defective manner. The sections were numbered in a different manner. The north and south lines were run by the compass and not by the true meridian. All the north-and-south section and township lines between the Miami River vary from the meridian about five degrees, which was the variation of the magnetic needle at the close of the last century.


Sections were numbered thus between the Miami Rivers:

36

30

24

18

12

6

35

29

23

17

11

5

34

28

22

16

10

4

33

27

21

15

9

3

32

26

20

14

8

2

31

25

19

13

7

1



West of the Great Miami, the lines were run and the sections numbered according to the present system of surveying public lands. The lands between the Miamis were not surveyed by the General Government, but under the terms of the sale of the Miami Purchase, by the direction and at the expense of Judge Symmes and his associates.


Sections were numbered thus west of the Great Miami:


6

5

4

3

2

1

7

8

9

10

11

12

18

17

16

15

14

13

19

20

21

22

23

24

30

29

28

27

26

25

31

32

33

34

35

36



If the reader will carefully observe a recent map of Warren County, drawn on a large scale, he cannot fail to notice the zig-zag course of the section lines running east and west. The history of the plan of survey adopted by Symmes gives a satisfactory explanation of this feature of the map. For the most part, Only the north and south lines were run by the original surveyors, and stakes were planted for the section corners, the subsequent purchasers being left to run the east-and-west lines connecting the corners. At the commencement of the survey, the principal surveyor was directed to run a line east and west from one Miami River to the other for a base line. This base line was placed so far north as to avoid the most northern bend of the Ohio, and is only seven miles south of the southern boundary of Deerfield Township. Along this base line

shape and in whatever place in the district it pleased him, provided the land


230 - HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY


stakes were planted at the termination of every' mile. The assistant surveyors of whom there was a considerable number, then ran north and south lines by the termination of every mile for section corners, and the purchasers were left the compass from these stakes. Along these lines stakes were also planted at to complete the survey by running, at their own expense, lines east and west to connect the section corners.


An examination of a large map of the county will show the further fact that in the third or military range, the east-and-west lines do not present the zigzag appearance to be seen in other ranges. It appears that, for some reason, Judge Symmes directed his surveyors not to place stakes at the termination of each mile in running the meridian lines through this range. Gen. Jonathan Dayton afterward employed Israel Ludlow to complete the survey of this range.


The result of this imperfect method of survey was that hardly any section in the whole purchase contains the proper quantity of land; and except in the third range, hardly a section has two of its corners on the same east-and-west line. Some sections are too large, and some too small. Section No. 31, in the fourth range, adjoining on the north one of the four sections on which Lebanon is laid out, instead of 640 acres, which it was intended to contain, measures about 840 acres. Other sections fall far short of the required amount of land. After these irregularities were found out and complained of, and litigation had arisen concerning corners of sections, Judge Symmes endeavored to correct the evil by carefully re-measuring one of the meridians and setting up new stakes from which purchasers were to determine their corners. But this would have altered every original corner, and resulted in- still greater confusion. The Supreme Court of the State confirmed the old corners.


An act of Congress passed March 3, 1801, provided that the lands between the Miami Rivers which Symmes had failed to pay for, and which lie between the northern boundary of his patent and the seventh range, should be divided into sections by the Surveyor General, and both northwardly and southwardly, and eastwardly and westwardly lines should be run, but in so doing, the magnetic meridians run under the direction of Symmes, and the corners established in his survey, were to be recognized.


LAND TRACTS.


Explanations of the terms used to designate the various kinds of tracts of land in Warren Connty, with reference to the difference in the origin of their titles or the mode of transfer to the occupying owners, are here given:


Virginia Military Lands. —These lands lie between the Little Miami and Scioto Rivers, and are bounded by the Ohio on the south. The State of Virginia, under the charter granted by King James I, in 1609, claimed all the lands extending 200 miles north and 200 miles south from Point Comfort along the coast, and "up into the land throughout from sea to sea, west and northwest." In 1784, the State of Virginia ceded to the United States the right of soil and jurisdiction of the territory northwest of the Ohio, reserving the lands between the Little Miami and Scioto for the purpose of satisfying the land warrants of the Virginia troops on continental establishment in the Revolution. The land bounties promised by Virginia in her statutes of 1779 and 1780 to her Revolutionary troops who should serve until the close of the war, were liberal, especially to the officers of the higher grades. A private was to receive 200 acres: a non-commissioned officer, 400 acres; a subaltern, 2,000 acres; a Captain, 1000 acres; a Major, 4,000 acres; a Lieutenant Colonel, 4,500 acres; a Colonel/ 5,000 acres; a Brigadier General, 10,000 acres; a Major General, 15,000 acres. The lands south of the Ohio granted for these bounties having been exhausted, on the 1st day of August, 1787, the books were opened for the location of war-


HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY - 231


rants between the Little Miami and Scioto. A large number of locations were entered on the first day the books were opened, and on that day, one entry was wade of land within the present limits of Warren County, viz.: Clement Read's entry of 1,333 acres (No. 399). So rapidly were locations made that 55,000 acres within the present limits of Warren were located before the expiration of the month of August, ._787. The regular surveys of these entries were not made until several years later. The patents for the lands were signed by the President of the United States.


Symmes' Patent. —A brief history of the Miami Purchase has already been given. As finally patented to Symmes and his associates, the tract contained only 311,682 acres, bounded on the south by the Ohio, on the east by the Little Miami, on the west by the Great Miami, and on the north by a parallel of latitude, so run as to comprehend the quantity of land named. The north boundary passes about one mile north of Lebanon. Symmes and his associates had paid the Government for only 248,540 acres, but the township of land for a college, the lands for the support of schools and religion, and other reservations, were included in his patent. The patentee, John Cleves Symmes, was born at Riverhead, on Long Island, in the State of New York, July 21, 1742, and died at Cincinnati January 26, 1814. Having removed to New Jersey, he became a member of Congress and Chief Justice of the State. He was one of the three Judges of the Northwest Territory in whose hands, in connection with the Governor, was vested the government of the Territory. His name should not be confounded with that of John Cleves Symmes, author of the theory that " the earth is hollow, hahitable within, and widely open about the poles." The author of this theory, which has been ridiculed in the expression, Symmes' Hole," was a nephew of the land speculator.


Ministerial Lands. —In both the purchases of the Ohio Company and Symmes, Section 29 in every township of six miles square was reserved for the support of religion. The purchasers of these tracts came from parts of the Union in which it was customary to have a settled support for a clergyman in each town, and they stipulated with Congress for a reservation of land to be set apart for this purpose. In no other parts of Ohio than these two tracts are any such reservations made, nor has the United States Government devoted any portion of, the public lands for the support of religion since the adoption of the constitution of the United States. Judge Symmes, in publishing his pamphlet giving the terms of sale and settlement of his purchase, seems to have had the notion that ministers of the Gospel would be permitted to occupy Section 29, and schoolmasters Section 16. There are but three ministerial sections in Warren County. Two of these have been sold under State laws, and the interest on the proceeds of the sale is applied for the benefit of all the religious societies in the townships in which the sections are located. The third section is still leased, and the rent is applied to the support of religious societies in the township in which it is situated.


School Sections.—Section 16 in each township, or the one-thirty-sixth part of Symmes' Purchase, was reserved for the use of schools in the original contract for this purchase. For the Virginia Military District, which was not laid out into sections, Congress, in 4807, enacted that a quantity of land equal to the one-thirty-sixth part should be selected from the lands then lately purchased from the Indians, and lying between the Western Reserve and the United States Military District, for the use of schools. The first reservation of Section 16 for the use of schools was made by the Colonial Congress in an ordinance passed May 20, 1785, for the survey and sale of the lands comprehended in the Ohio Company's Purchase. The policy has been continued to the present time, and, in the newer States and Territories, the reservations for schools have been in-


under authority of the Legislature by the Governor of the State, and the pro_ needs form a part of the irreducible State school fund.


232 - HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.


creased to two sections, or 1,280 acres, in each township of six miles square. In Ohio, where the school sections have been sold, the deeds have been made under authority of the Legislature by the Governor of the State, and the proceeds form a part of the irreducible State school fund.


Military Range.—The third range of townships in Symmes' Purchase, six miles wide and extending from the Great to the Little Miami River, is called the Military Range. In this range are Lebanon, South Lebanon and Union Village in Warren County, and Hamilton, Monroe and Bethany in Butler County. The whole range is probably not excelled in fertility and excellence of soil by any tract of equal extent in the State of Ohio. The fertility of the lands of this range was noticed by Symmes in a letter of an early date written to Gen. Dayton. It is called the Military Range because it was paid for by military land warrants issued by the United States to offrcers and soldiers for services in the Revolution. In the contract of Symmes with Congress; it was stipulated that United States military land warrants would be taken in payment, acre for acre, provided the aggregate of such payments did not exceed one-seventh of the whole tract purchased. These warrants were at that time of little value. In publishing the terms of sale and settlement of the Miami Purchase, Symmes directed the officers and soldiers of the Revolutionary army who desired to have/ their land warrants located in his purchase to send their names, rank, regiment and line to Gen. Dayton, at Elizabethtown, N. J., who was appointed to receive applications of this nature. A sufficient quantity of warrants was obtained to cover an entire range, and the third range was selected, and, after Symmes received his patent, he conveyed to Jonathan Dayton this range in trust for the owners of the warrants. The military warrants on which the title to this range rests, paid into the United States Treasury by Gen. Dayton and placed to the credit of Symmes, amounted to $42,897. The titles to all the lands in this range are derived from Gen. Jonathan Dayton, except the school sections, the ministerial sections, and Sections 8, 11 and 26, reserved by Congress for such purposes as should be afterward directed. The larger part of the lands in Warren County comprehended within Symmes' patent lie in the Military Range, and a larger number of deeds from Dayton are to be found in the county land records than from Symmes.


Forfeitures.—In Symmes' plan of sale and settlement of his purchase, it was provided that, in order to avoid the detrimental effects of large tracts whereon no families are settled, every locator of land should, within two years from the time of entering his location, place himself or some other person or persons on the land, or in some station of defense, and begin an improvement on the land located, and continue the improvement for seven years—provided they are not disturbed by the Indians for that period—and failing to do so, he should forfeit the one-sixth part of his land, to be taken off in a square at the northeast corner. The forfeited part was to revert to the Register, who was authorized to grant it to any volunteer settler who should first apply for the same and perform what was required of the original locator. The terms on which titles to these forfeitures could be obtained were stated in Symmes' pamphlet in confused and indefinite phraseology, and a large number of suits of ejectment were brought against the occupants of the forfeitures. Judge Burnet says that for the first ten years of his practice at Cincinnati, one-half of the ejectment cases in which he was employed arose on forfeiture titles. Popular feeling was in favor of the volunteer settler who made the improvement, and, if he could make out a plausible case, he was most likely to succeed.


In January, 1795, Judge Symmes gave notice in the Centinel of the Northwestern Territory, published at Cincinnati, that, as deeds will soon be given to those citizens in the Miami Purchase who have paid for their sections or frac-


HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY - 233


tions of sections of land, it is " incumbent on all who have entered forfeitures below the military or third range of townships, if they wish to save their forfeitures, to begin their improvements thereon as soon as possible. It being now required that every owner of a forfeiture below said military or third range fence and clear, in a proper manner, and plant with corn and duly cultivate two acres of land in the course of the next season, otherwise, it will be considered as a dereliction and relinquishment of the claim."


Congress Lands.—All the lands of Warren County west of the Little Miami and north of Symmes' patent may be called Congress lands; that is, lands sold to purchasers by the offrcers of the General Government, under laws enacted by Congress from time to time. It was not until April, 1801, that these lands could be purchased from the United States in quantities as small as a half-section, or 320 acres, and there were no settlers on the lands west of the Great Miami, except a few squatters, and no improvements made until after that date. The price fixed by Congress for the public lands at this time was $2 per


Pre-empted Lands.—Symmes had sold large quantities of land between the Miami Rivers north of the line which marked the northern boundary of his patent. For these lands he was unable to secure a. patent from the Government, and consequently could not grant titles to those who had purchased from him. A large number of persons within the present limits of Warren and Butler Counties, and, indeed, as far north as Dayton, were thus left in the unhappy condition of having contracted for lands for which they could not obtain deeds. Some had paid for their lands in full; others in part; many had expended considerable time and labor in improving them. The towns of Franklin, Waynesville and Dayton had been laid out on lands thus purchased, and all over the tract were many clearings and settlements commenced. The claims of these persons were presented to Congress. An act was promptly passed which secured to all persons who had made written contracts with Symmes for lands which did not lie within his patent a preference over all others at $2 per acre. Other pre-emption acts were passed which enabled a number of worthy persons to complete their payments, and save the titles to their lands with the improvements they had made thereon.


THE CHAIN OF LAND TITLES.


Let us look for a moment at the chain of titles to the lands of Warren County, taking one tract as an example, and tracing its title to its origin.


The lots on which the court house and jail stand were conveyed to Warren County in trust, for the purposes for which they are devoted, by William Sinnard, Abraham Wambaugh, Paul Egbert, Daniel Skinner and their wives, by deed of gift dated, September '7, 1820.


The above-named grantors derived their title from Samuel Manning by deed dated October 2, 1808.


Samuel Manning derived his title from Benjamin Stites, who conveyed to Manning the west half of Section 36, or 320 acres in consideration of $320, by deed dated October 10, 1797.


Maj. Benjamin Stites derived his title from Jonathan Dayton, who conveyed to Stites about ten thousand acres in the third or military range, including the sections on which the east half of Lebanon stands, by deed dated May 14, 1795.


Gen. Jonathan Dayton derived his title from John Cleves Symmes, who conveyed to Dayton the third entire range of townships in his purchase, called the Military Range, in trust, for the benefit of the owners of the United States military warrants with which the range was purchased, by deed dated October


234 - HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.


Judge John Cleves Symmes derived his title to his purchase from the United States by deed signed by George Washington, President, dated September 30, 1794.


The United States derived its title from the State of Virginia by deed of cession, signed by Thomas Jefferson, Samuel Hardy, Arthur Lee and James Monroe, delegates from the commonwealth of Virginia in the Second Colonial Congress, authorized by an act of Virginia passed October 20, 1783, entitled " An Act to authorize the delegates of the State in Congress to convey to the United States in Congress assembled, all right of this commonwealth to the territory northwest of the River Ohio," the deed of cession being dated March 1, 1784.


The State of Virginia derived its title from James I, King of England, by charter dated May 23, 1609.


And Great Britain derived its title by right of discovery of Sebastian Cabot in 1498.