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Show 256 HISTORY OF PUBLIC LAND LAW DEVELOPMENT scouring Virginia for warrants, which they were usually able to purchase for very little from owners discouraged by the delays and difficulties in locating them. A fragmentary table of prices paid for warrants reveals individual sales in 1795 and 1797 at 20 cents an acre, in 1804 for as little as 10 cents an acre, in 1805 at 50 cents, in 1806 at 30 and 40 cents, and in 1807 for 30 cents to $4.00. The higher prices were doubtless for land, perhaps improved land, rather than for unlocated scrip. Many years later Virginia warrants again sold for as little as 20 to 30 cents an acre because there was either no land then available on which they could be located or the limitations on their use made them less valuable.18 Among the landlookers and surveyors who hunted up land in the Virginia Military Tract for others were Duncan McArthur, Nathaniel Massie, Lucas Sullivant, and Thomas Worthington, who all made fortunes in the business. To Nathaniel Massie were patented 75,285 acres; to Duncan McArthur, 90,947; to Lucas Sullivant, 68,785 acres; and to Thomas Worthington, 18,273 acres. James Taylor's 118,601 acres and Cadwallader Wallace's 118,315 acres were the largest holdings. The 25 largest acquisitions totaled 1,035,408 acres, or 26 percent of the entire tract. The persons to whom these large acreages were patented probably never owned more than a fraction of their total acquisitions at any one time. They were essentially land agents, landlookers, surveyors, dealers, and to some extent developers of farmland, who also engaged in the town and city lot business. They took care of taxes on the lands they held for others, watched out for timber stealing, and perhaps most important, tried to induce squatters to become tenants, pay the taxes on the land they occupied, and sooner or later begin to pay rent. They were always looking for purchasers able to pay the price 18 For a table of quotations see Hutchinson, "The Bounty Lands of the American Revolution in Ohio," p. 203. asked. Thomas Worthington, one of the best known and ablest of this group of land dealers, was twice elected United States Senator from Ohio, became Governor, built himself a fine mansion just outside Chillicothe in the center of his 1,500-acre estate, and at the time of his death in 1827 owned some 13,500 additional acres, though all were somewhat encumbered.19 Duncan McArthur was several times elected to Congress, served as brigadier general in the War of 1812, was elected Governor of Ohio in 1830, founded Manchester and Chillicothe and "became immensely rich as a landlord."20 Lucas Sullivant established himself on the Scioto opposite the site of modern Columbus and developed a large agricultural estate; his son Michael became the bonanza farmer of Ford County, Illinois. Thus did the opportunity of buying Virginia military land warrants cheaply lay the foundation of the fortunes of these Ohio statesmen. One may question whether the original grantees profited much from the bounty of Virginia and the United States. It should be noted that tax delinquency early became a serious problem in the Virginia Military Tract partly because the owners of the large holdings overestimated their ability to carry the land and partly because they were uncertain when the lands became subject to taxes. After the Panic of 1819 so many tracts were tax delinquent that the Ohio Legislature agreed to remit the heavy penalties if the owners would pay the actual taxes as levied. Tax delinquency and tax title controversies added to the litigation resulting from the indiscriminate method of location, and to uncertainty as to the ownership of large areas of totally undeveloped land. These factors added to the costs of managing land for absentees. Tax titles alone had a mere nuisance value but if combined 19 Alfred B. Sears, Thomas Worthington. Father of Ohio Statehood (Columbus, Ohio, 1958), p. 236. 20 Henry Howe (ed.), Historical Collections of Ohio (2 vols., Cincinnati, 1900), II, 505-507. |
