(By Stephen Kelley from the People’s Defender 1984)
As I have written in past columns, Adams County was carved out of a section of the old Northwest Territory that had been reserved as bounty lands for Revolutionary War soldiers from Virginia. These lands were established by the U.S. Congress in 1784 and were known as the Virginia Military District. This area encompassed over four million acres situated between the Scioto and Little Miami Rivers and extended as far north as present-day Hardin County.
Prior to the American Revolution, this part of Ohio had been claimed by the state of Virginia. In 1780, while the Revolution was still being fought, Congress decided that the “Territory North-west of the River of Ohio” should be part of the public domain. In making this decision, pressure was duly applied to the states of New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Virginia to relinquish their claims in the west. It took six years but eventually all four states complied with the wishes of Congress.
Of the states mentioned, Virginia had the most land area to lose. However, when it did relinquish its western territory, the government of Virginia reserved a significant portion of its claims as bounty lands to pay its citizens who had fought in the Revolution. The war had drained the treasury of the state to the point where it could no longer pay its soldiers in cash. Therefore, Virginia opted to indemnify its veterans with the acreage it had reserved in the Northwest Territory. Thus, the Virgina Military District (VMD) was created, It is significant to note that the first permanent white settlement within the boundaries of the VMD was Massie’s Station, better known today as Manchester.
The VMD was divided into large sections known as warrants. Each deed or “patent” presented to the Virginia veterans specified in which warrant his or her land grant was to be located. It was then up to each veteran to hire an authorized land locator or surveyor to trek through the wilderness, locate a desirable section of acreage, survey it and register the survey with the government land patent office.
The amount of land a soldier received was in proportion to rank. For example, a private was to receive two hundred acres whereas a captain would be awarded three thousand acres. A major general was to receive the maximum which was a hefty fifteen thousand acres.
Needless to say, many of the Virginia veterans who received these bounty lands had no desire to move into this wilderness area and settle. According to Adams County historian, Emmons B. Stiver, “And as many of the soldiers to whom these (patents) were granted had not the means of inclination to locate them, from the great hardships to be endured and the risk and danger from Indian attacks after crossing west of the Alleghenies, there sprung up a class of land jobbers who bought these (patents) and employed deputy surveyors to locate them. The deputy surveyors themselves became speculators in lands through the purchase of patents or by taking an agreed portion of the lands entered and surveyed by them. Sometimes they would get as much as one-half of a survey for their services.”
We will tell you more about the VMC next week.
