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Show Chapter VII Credit Sales Experiment, 1800-1820 Despite all the attention the western lands received during the period of the Confederation, including the hours of debate in the state legislatures about cession and in the Congress about plans for land disposal, 6 years elapsed under the new Federal Constitution before public concern was again focused on the lands. The Indian troubles and the disastrous defeats of Generals Harmar and St. Clair in 1790 and 1791 undoubtedly frightened many who had planned to cross into the Ohio country. But why Congress was so slow in considering a measure for the disposal of the public lands still remains a mystery. Most of the speculative groups that had offered to buy Ohio land had failed to make good on their proposals and the two which did carry through part of their contracts, the Ohio Company and John Cleves Symmes, brought more trouble than certificates of debt to the Federal Treasury. There was too much cheap land going begging that was closer or more easily accessible to older established communities, such as the western portions of New York, Pennsylvania, and Georgia, and in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Maine. Capitalists seemed to have lost interest in Ohio. The government's efforts to sell land at auction had brought very limited results in 1796. No purchaser had bought an entire township, and only 108,431 acres had been sold, of which 35,457 acres were subsequently forfeited. Another sale of 202,187 acres in the Erie Triangle had been made to Pennsylvania for SI 51,640; doubtless it was paid in the depreciated certificates of indebted- A Family Encampment From A. D. Richardson, Beyond the Mississippi, 1867 ness. The auction sale, the Pennsylvania purchase, and the slow returns from the Ohio and Scioto groups altogether brought the government, in the 10 years following 1785, an amount less than 1 percent of its total obligations, which at the time were selling at 12 to 15 cents on the dollar.1 At that rate it would have taken 100 years to retire the 1 American State Papers, Public Lands, III, 459. A somewhat different figure is given by Albion Morris Dyer, First Ownership of Ohio Lands (Boston, 1911), pp. 53-57. Alexander Macomb and John Edgar who were among the largest holders of land in New York and Illinois then or later, had purchased the 35,457 acres which were forfeited. Other large buyers were James Gray, 5,269 acres; Dr. Robert Johnson, 11,240 acres; Nathan McFarland 11,194 acres; and John Hopkins, 12,267 acres. 121 |