281 - PART IV
GOVERNMENTAL
283 - HISTORY OF TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY
CHAPTER I.
PUBLIC LANDS.
AMONG the delicate and embarrassing questions which arose in setting in operation the new order of Government after the Revolutionary War, was that of title to the vast domain of wild territory stretching from the settlements in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, to the Mississippi River. The difficulty consisted in the conflicting claims of the United States Government and those of the States, and especially Virginia and Connecticut, whose charters from the Crown of England covered the larger portion of such lands. The question was made the more serious, by the fact that the States which had no such territory, remonstrated against the claim as unjust, inasmuch as the title to the lands had been secured by the common sacrifices of all the States. The case was finally settled by the cession of the territory in question to the United States by the several States-Virginia yielding up her claim to the vast territory Northwest of the Ohio, and Connecticut her claim to the same, save the district along Lake Eric, known as the " Connecticut Reserve." This action was followed by legislation by Congress, looking to the sale of the territory thus ceded. The first plan was to sell in quantities of two million acres each, based upon the idea of colonies or settlements under the purchasers of such tracts. The Ohio Company, on the Muskingum River, made the first purchase of this sort. Subsequently the quantity was reduced to one-million tracts, when John Cleves Symmes, of New Jersey, and associates, bought that quantity between the Miami Rivers, in Southwestern Ohio, and adjoining the Ohio Company's tract. In 1785, a tract on the Ohio River and the Pennsylvania line, consisting of seven ranges of Townships five miles square, was surveyed and offered for sale in quarter Townships. This policy of sales in large tracts was not successful, for the reason that it did not hold out requisite' inducements for immigration by the class of people necessary to the desired settlement. Hence, in 1796 Congress reduced the quantity of salable lands to Sections of one mile square in alternate Townships, and to quarter Townships of three miles square in the residue of the lands. This plan working but little better than the others, Congress in 1800 directed the subdivision of these lands for sale in half sections of 320 acres, and for the first time opened Land Offices in the vicinities of the lands thus prepared for sale - Cincinnati, Marietta, Chillicothe and Steubenville being selected for such offices. The Indian title to all lands in Ohio, except in the Northwest, having been relinquished, immigration at once became active, and the Eastern, Northern and Southern sections were rapidly settled. Still, the smallest tract to be had of the Government was a Section, or 640 acres. Ere long another reduction was made in the minimum of sale, and quarter sections of 160 acres, could be bought at $2.00 per acre, on a credit of five years, 40 days being allowed for the first payment of 20 per cent. This arrangement at once gave such activity to settlement, that in 1802 there was population sufficient to justify the organization of a State Government for Ohio. Still, the land system of the Government was not a success, for the reason that a very large portion of purchases under the credit plan were made with the expectation that the lands could be made to produce means for all but the earliest payments. This was true of those buying for improvement and cultivation, as well as of speculators. The result was general disappointment on the part of purchasers, and the accumulation of an immense debt to the Government, said to exceed in amount the entire money in the Western States. By 1820, this indebtedness on lands purchased in the West reached the sum of $22,000,000, and was rapidly increasing through accruing interest, with little prospect of becoming less; while its effect upon purchasers was to paralyze enterprise and improvement of every sort and to threaten general bankruptcy. So serious did the situation become, that Congress was forced to action for relief. To Jacob Burnet of Cincinnati seems due the credit of the plan adopted. He drew up a memorial to Congress, setting forth the facts of the case, including the utter hopelessness of relief under existing conditions, and proposing that purchasers be allowed to surrender their contracts, select such portions of their purchases as they might choose, and apply on the same the amounts of payments already made, back interest being released by the Government. This scheme was adopted, and with it an important change in the land system, under which all lands were to be sold for cash down only, with the price reduced from $2.00 to $1.25 per acre, with the minimum sales fixed at eighth-sections of 80 acres each. This brought immediate and material relief to the entire West, and greatly stimulated settlement by actual owners of the lands they occu-
284 - HISTORY OF TOLEDO AND LUCAS COUNTY.
pied. Thus had the quantity of purchasable land been reduced from 2,000,000 to 80 acres, and the price from $2.00 to $1.25, at which the cost has remained to this time. But these are not the only particulars in which settlement has been encouraged. The policy of preemption by actual occupation has operated largely to promote immigration and the development of the great West, since by such policy the poorest settlers have been enabled to obtain homes without cost of purchase, a wonderful change from the policy under which all settlers were subjected to dependence on the few speculators who were enabled to purchase large tracts of lands from the Government.*
In this connection, and as an important agency in the work of settlement and development of the great West, may be mentioned the policy of the Government under which grants of lands were made to a large number of corporations, as inducement for the construction of Railways through the National domain, chiefly in anticipation of settlement and of traffic requisite for the support of such improvements. Without here undertaking to enter upon a history of this action by the Government, or upon a discussion of the arguments, pro and con., used in such connection, it is sufficient to say, that on the whole, such policy has operated to the advantage of the country. Commencing with the grants to the Illinois Central Railroad, under which that great trunk line was run from the Northern points to the Southern extreme of that State, at the very time when such medium for market and travel was indispensable to the early development of the rich prairies, which otherwise must have long continued without settlement, the eminent success of this experiment operated strongly to extensive employment of land-subsidies which soon followed. There probably is not a single Western State-as there certainly is not a Western Territory which has not enjoyed in greater or less degree the benefits of this ex-
*Burnet's "Notes of the Northwestern Territory," p. 394.
traordinary stimulus to settlement and growth. In fact, there is not a Territory, and scarcely a State, that is not indebted to this aid for its advancement ; and but for which the great body of the present West and Northwest would to-day be the haunts of the roaming savage and of the wild buffalo. This is not the popular view to express of this matter, the more generally acceptable understanding being that Railway land-grants were mere gratuities to corporations, without warrant in any public interest. Few seem to consider, that the great development and wealth of the Western regions are the direct product of the enterprise encouraged by subsidies. The greatly appreciated values of the lands held by the Railroad Companies, are cited as evidence of excessive bounties; whereas, these values are due wholly to the extraordinary enterprise which alone could secure the investment of capital necessary to the settlement requisite for such advanced values. That unwise grants have been made, is quite true; but such exceptions the more fully establish the rule. It may here be properly stated, that the policy of land-grants has now pretty much entirely ceased to be a necessary aid in Railway construction, the sections in which such are demanded being very few in number and without much importance.
The first sales of Government lands in Northwestern Ohio, took place at the Land Office at Wooster, Ohio, in the year 1817. One embraced the Reservation of two miles square at the foot of the Rapids of the Sandusky River (now Fremont), and occurred on the first Monday of July ; and the other consisted of the Reservation of 12 miles square, at the foot of the Rapids of the Maumee River, and took place on the third Tuesday of the same month. At the former sale was purchased the tract on which the Town plat of Croghansville, on the East side of the Sandusky River, and now included within Fremont, was soon thereafter laid out ; and at the latter sale was purchased the lands on which Port Lawrence (Toledo), and Orleans (Fort Meigs) were at once laid out.