OCR Text |
Show ' l:MIGRANT'S GUIDE. 7 country upon which settlements or grants were made, prior to t~e 20th December\ 1803. There are large ~paces · ot excellent sorl, however, upon which no settlemen!s or g~ants H'ere made, before possession was had by the agents of the Umtetl States; and of course the townships here will be regular. From Nat chez toN ew Orleans, and as far below the latter city as the banks of the Mississippi are arable, the French and Sp;wish (!rants extend, and though much vacant land was founJ by the United States surveyors, I believe in no one place was it of sufficient extent to admit of an unbroken township. The banks of the Lafourche were granteJ and actually settled upon both sides, about ninety miles from its efflux from the Mississippi, under the French and Spanish governments The banks of Red river near Natchitoches, and the Rapide, and in the Avoyelles prairie, were extensively granted and settled.-'I'he Ouachitta river, from its mouth to the entrance of Saline river, in lat. 33° 6' N. was also settled ; and near Fort Miro, to a con~iJerable distance from the river. . 1n Atacapas aBu Opelous;as the grants and settlements commenced upon the Atchafalaya, below the mouth of Teche, and reached to mee~ the grants of Rapide. On the waters of the Vermilion, Courtableau aud Mermentau, the grants were numerous and settlements extensive. ln ail other parts of the state, the land ceded by the govern· ment, was in distant detached spots. Upon the Sabine and Calcasiu rivers the grants were few ; mo5t of the country remained, ancl now remains vacant. AboYe Natchitoches on Red river, the grants and settlements terminated about twenty miles above the post. On Ouachitt<', considerable tracts stiJJ continue public property. fn the very extensive tract between Opelousas and theN. ~V. angle of the state, following the dividing ridge between Red anJ SalJine and Calcasiu ri· vers, the surface is almost entirely vacant. The area between Red and Ouachitta rivers, also continues in a great measure unoccupieJ. A great portion of that part of \tV est Flo:·ida that bas been incorporated into the state of Louisiana is yet public land. The only araule tr::1ct, yet publ1c lanJ, upon which the s u~ar cane can be cultivated surcessfully, is contained between the Lafourche and Atchafalaya rivers upon the Bayou Breuf. This region remained unexplored till after the establishment of the American government. To execute the surveys in the tbeu territory of Orleans, now state of Louisiana, Mr. Isaac Briggs, then surveyor of the lands of the United tates south of Tennessee, commenced, in the summer of 1 DOS, the operation, by establishing the point where 332 N. L. crossed the Mississippi river; that parallel was then extended to Red river, a distance of ,148 miles and a fraction. The 3 J 0 N. Lat. was extended to Sabine, from tl e point fixed by Mr. Andrew EIJicott, on the left shore of the Mississippi. At the distance from EJiicott's point of 48 miles, a due meridian line was extended north to the 33° N. Lat. and south to the swamps upon the gulf of lVIexico. These lines thus surveyed and marked, were the uasis upon which the ~ub equ ·nt urveys were performed1 The private claims were e.x:tremely com- |