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Show 128 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT officers than with any and all other officers of the United States.18 Until 1849 the General Land Office continued as a bureau in the Treasury Department. During this time its activities were given small attention in that Department's annual reports. A reading of the reports suggests that the responsibilities of the office were not given the attention their importance warranted. When the "Home" or Interior Department was created in 1849, and the General Land Office became its most important bureau, it came into its own. In 1946 the General Land Office was consolidated with the Grazing Service into the Bureau of Land Management. No Rush to Purchase No rush to purchase land followed the adoption of the Act of 1796. Speculators were not attracted in any considerable number, as Gallatin had predicted, and neither were settlers induced to buy. Income from land sales was reported by the Treasury Department to be $4,836 in 1796, $83,540 in 1797, $11,963 in 1798, and $843 in 1799. Elsewhere Gallatin stated that 121,540 acres had been sold before May 1800, of which 72,974 acres were sold in New York, 43,446 in Pittsburgh, and 5,120 acres in Philadelphia. Obviously changes in the land act would be necessary if the promise of large revenue from the public lands was to be fulfilled.19 In the sale of its land the government had to compete with two major land settlement companies in Ohio, with the great Holland 18 The structure of the General Land Office has been studied by Francis H. White, "The General Land Office, 1812-1911" (Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1912), copy in the National Archives; Milton Conover, The General Land Office: Its History, Activities and Organization (Baltimore, 1923); and Malcolm J. Rohrbough, "The General Land Office, 1812-1826: An Administrative Study" (Ph.D. dissertation, Wisconsin, 1963). Donaldson, Hibbard, and Robbins also are useful. 19 American State Papers, Finance, II, 919; Henry Adams (ed.), The Writings of Albert Gallatin (3 vols., Philadelphia, 1879), III, 221-22. Land Company in New York and Pennsylvania, and with influential investor-developers such as Nathaniel Massie, Thomas Worthing-ton, Duncan McArthur, and a score of other large owners of land in the two military tracts of Ohio. All these men had acquired their lands so cheaply-in the military tracts the cost seems to have been from 10 to 50 cents an acre-that they could undersell the government. They maintained local offices and agents in the vicinity of their lands whereas much of the Federal land had to be offered for sale outside the territory. They were developing their tracts by laying out towns and cities, marking out trails and building roads, constructing buildings, clearing and improving the land, and actively soliciting purchasers, whereas the government could only survey. They could sell on longer credit, as much as 6 and 8 years, and would divide their holdings into small lots to suit purchasers. They would accept wheat, corn, rye, whiskey, bacon, and even cows under 7 years of age and young steers in payment and had agents in various communities prepared to credit debtors for the goods they brought in. Some could even accept farms in the East for their land. With all these advantages it is understandable why immigrants came not to the public lands of Ohio, but to Cincinnati, Marietta, and Chillicothe, in the heart of the private land holdings. Disappointment with the immediate results of the Act of 1796 led Congress in 1797 to consider liberalizing it by allowing purchasers 4 years instead of one in which to complete their payments, permitting sales of 640-acre tracts in the townships held for sale in 5,120-acre units, and accepting United States stock in payment. The first proposal would make investments in land more attractive to moneyed men, the second would ease the route to ownership for the small man, and the third would reduce the cost of land by 20 percent because of the current depreciation in the stock. The second and third proposals were rejected, though the House favored reducing the size of tracts eligible for |
