History of public land law development

page 70

70 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT 500,000 acres as a Gentleman formerly would do of 1000 acres. In defiance of the proclamation of Congress, they roam over the Country on the Indian side of Ohio, mark out lands, Survey, and even settle them."28 Among those trying to secure great tracts of land were the Yazoo land companies, Phelps and Gorham, the Holland Land Company, the Connecticut Land Company, and the Ohio and Scioto Land Companies. The success of one group in acquiring land only seemed to whet the appetites of others to outdo the first in size of purchase and volume of publicity to attract buyers. Of the groups interested in the Ohio country, the first to show its hand was the Ohio Company. Consisting of Massachusetts men- Rufus Putnam, Manasseh Cutler, and Win-throp Sargent-the company proposed to purchase 1,500,000 acres of land below the Seven Ranges in southeastern Ohio. Approval of the purchase was not easy to secure; Cutler and Putnam found it necessary to join in support of a larger and more dubious enterprise to get anywhere with Congress. This was the Scioto Land Company which consisted of a number of members of Congress and state officials who proposed they be included with the Ohio Company in a combined purchase of 5 million acres. This enlarged plan was accepted by the Congress 28 George Washington, Mount Vernon, to Jacob Read, November 3, 1784, Fitzpatrick, Writings of George Washington, XXVII, 486. In this letter Washington expressed his view as to the way in which United States public lands should be handled. "Fix such a price upon the Lands," he urged, "as would not be too exhorbitant and burthensome for real-occupiers, but high enough to discourage monopolizers." All steps taken to acquire ownership in land north of the Ohio (which up to 1784 were contrary to the prohibition of Congress) should be null and void, and squatters who should intrude on lands closed to them and still held by the Indians, should be considered as outlaws, "fit subjects for Indian vengeance." His lands on the Great Kanawha and Ohio Rivers amounted to 32,373 acres for which he offered to take 30,000 English Guineas. Washington to H. L. Charlton, Mount Vernon, May 20, 1796, ibid., XXVIII, 437. and the sale was made in 1787. The Scioto Company raised no money and got no land but the Ohio Company succeeded in carrying through part of its contract. The terms of the contract with the Ohio Company were so generous that it is easy to understand why William Duer, Secretary of the Board of Treasury and a rich banker, wanted to have a share in the enterprise and to have his share kept secret. One and a half million acres were to be purchased at $1 an acre with a reduction of one-third of a dollar for poor land. Since depreciated securities of the Confederation were acceptable, the actual cost in specie would be about 8 cents an acre. The agreement stipulated that section 16 in each township should be reserved for schools and section 29 should be held "for purposes of religion," which seemed quite appropriate for a Massachusetts-based land company. More important as an example for the future was the provision that two full townships of 23,040 acres each should be set aside for a university. Congress reserved to itself three sections in each township.29 The Ohio Company was essentially a colonizing company devoted to settling soldiers of the Revolutionary War and others from New England on its lands. It was not able to carry through the full purchase for which it had contracted but it did acquire more than a million acres. Its settlers became an outpost of New England culture and federalism. The early success of the Ohio Company in buying its tract led other speculatively inclined capitalists to gain a share of the public domain on the same liberal terms. One group that included George Morgan, Aaron Burr, William Newbold, and Oliver Pollock, among others, offered to buy 2 million acres bordering on the Mississippi. Garret Rapalje, John Ward, Royal Flint, and Joseph Ward each asked for a million acres west of the Seven Ranges. John Cleves Symmes first asked for 29 Archer B. Hulbert, The Records oj the Original Proceedings of the Ohio Company (2 vols., Marietta, Ohio, 1917), I, 14.