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CARROLL AND HARRISON COUNTIES - 239 CHAPTER VI PIONEER LAND-OWNERS FIRST SURVEYORS-SALE OF LANDS-EARLY LAND ENTRIES The ordinance passed by Congress April 23, 1784, provided for the establishment and maintenance of the government of the United States in the territory northwest of the Ohio River. This ordinance was reported by a committee of which Thomas Jefferson was chairman, and contained a clause prohibiting slavery in the territory after 1800. This provision, however, was stricken out before the ordinance was finally passed. The only important result accomplished under the first ordinance was the beginning of the survey of the territorial lands. Congress had purchased from the Indians at Fort Stanwix, October 27, 1784, whatever title the Six Nations had to lands in the Ohio Valley and now sought to provide a survey and disposal of the same. The ordinance of May 20, 1785 read: "An Ordinance for Ascertaining the Mode of Disposing of Lands in the Western Territory." This ordinance provided that a surveyor should be appointed from each state. May 27th, 1785, the following government surveyors were chosen by Congress: Nathaniel Adams, New Hampshire; Rufus Putnam, Massachusetts; Caleb Harris, Rhode Island ; William Morris, New York ; Adam Hoopes, Pennsylvania ; James Simpson, Maryland ; Alex Parker, Virginia ; Absalom Tatum, North Carolina ; William Tate, South Carolina ; and July 18, Isaac Sherman, Connecticut. Benjamin Tupper was appointed instead of Rufus Putnam from Massachusetts, as the latter was surveying the lands of Maine and could not serve. These surveyors were to survey the land into townships of six miles square. The first north and south line was to begin on the Ohio River, at a point due north from the western terminus of a line that had been run at the southern boundary of Pennsylvania ; and the first east and west line was also to begin at the same point. It was provided that as soon as seven ranges of townships had been survived, that plats of the same should be made and the secretary was then to take by lot a number of townships and fractional townships, both of those to be sold entire and those to be sold in lots, such as would be equal to one-seventh of the whole seven ranges, for the use of officers and soldiers of the Continental army. The plan originally adopted by Congress for the sale of the lands in the Northwest Territory proposed to sell it in tracts of two million acres ; the second ordinance in smaller tracts of one million. Under the last ordinance the contract of the Ohio company on the Muskingum and that of Judge Symmes and his associates between the Miamis were made, the former for two million and the latter for one million acres. By a subsequent ordinance passed in May, 1785, seven 240 - CARROLL AND HARRISON COUNTIES. ranges of townships each six miles square were surveyed westward from the Ohio River and Pennsylvania line which were divided and offered for sale in quarter townships ; first at Pittsburgh and afterward in Philadelphia. Harrison County lies between the western lines of ranges three and seven, its townships thus being included in the four western ranges. In May, 1796, an act was passed by Congress directing the surveyor general to cause the public lands to be divided into townships of six miles square ; and one-half of these townships taking them alternately to be divided into sections of one mile square and the residue into quarter townships of three miles square. In 1800 another law was passed ordering a portion of these lands to be subdivided and sold m half sections of three hundred and twenty acres. When this law came into operation land offices were established at Cincinnati, Chillicothe, Marietta and Steubenville and a large quantity of the richest and most productive soil was brought into the market. Before that time the tracts of land offered for sale by the government were so large that men of limited means were unable to purchase. The smallest tract that could be bought was a section of six hundred and forty acres. Under this arrangement most of the lands in the present townships of Short Creek, Athens, Green and Cadiz were entered by the section, thus indicating that the first corners were men of more than ordinary means or enterprise. Although the latter provisions for the accommodation of the settler of limited means was of much importance, yet it was not sufficiently so as to advance the settlement of the territory with much rapidity. But an act passed at the subsequent Congress ordered the sections and half sections to be subdivided and offered for sale in quarter sections (160 acres) at two dollars per acre on a credit of four years was of vastly more importance, as it enabled thousands to become landowners who otherwise must have remained tenants and it thus encouraged and increased emigration to the western country. EARLY LAND ENTRIES The records of the land office at Steubenville show that the office was opened in 1800 and.that the following entries of land were made for the first five years on lands situated in what is now known as Harrison County, Ohio: James Arnold, Arthur Barrett, Thomas Barrett, James Black, Robert Braden, George Brown, George Carnahan, John Carnahan, Samuel Carnahan, Joseph Clark, Robert Cochran, John Craig, Thomas Dickerson, Samuel Dunlap, James Finney, Samuel Gilmore, Eleazer Huff, John Huff, William Huff, James Hanna, James Haverfield, Thomas Hitchcock, Joseph Holmes, William Ingles, John Jamison, Joel Johnson, Joseph Johnson, William Johnson, Absalom Kent, George Layport, John Love, John Lyons, William McClary, John McConnell, Robert McCullough, William McCullough, John McFadden, Samuel McFadden, John Maholm, Samuel Maholm, Robert Maxwell, Thomas Maxwell, William Moore, Samuel Osburn, Baldwin Parsons, John Pugh, Rev. John Rea, John Ross, Jacob Shepler, Samuel Smith, Martin Snyder, John Taggart, Thomas Taylor, Hugh Teas, Robert Vincent, Thomas Vincent, John PICTURE OF S. H. ROSE, FOX HUNTER, AND SOME OF HIS GAME 242 - CARROLL AND HARRISON COUNTIES Wallace, Michael Waxler, Daniel Welcj, James Wilkin, Thomas Wilson. Of this list of pioneer settlers in Harrison County, it is known that the McFaddens, Craigs, Jamisons, Gilmores, Hannas, Reas, Wehches, Moores and Lyons came from Washington County, Pennsylvania ; the Arnolds, Dunlaps, Dickersons and Maholmes, from Fayette County; and most of the others probably came from the same districts. It is generally believed that many of the first settlers in this county were here prior to 1800, as the date of the land titles is not necessarily the date of the first settlement on the land, and it was the custom of the day to make improvements and to reside on pre-empted land for some months and even years before acquiring title to the land same as has always been the case west of the Mississippi River, and is today. Probably the dates of land patents was near five years later than such tracts of land had been occupied by the settler who claimed it as his. Alexander Henderson occupied the land near Cadiz known as the Walter Jamison farm as early as April, 1799, having moved from Washington County, Pennsylvania, with his family, about that time; and that Daniel Peterson then resided with his family at the forks of Short Creek. There are numerous traditions of settlements made prior to 1800 in this portion of Ohio, but there is no record that justifies explicit statements of such until about the time the United States land office was thrown open in 1800, at Steubenville. |