The proposed purchase by the Scioto Company is shown in red. The proposed purchase by the Ohio Company is in blue. The final purchase by the Ohio Company is in green. The 350px The Scioto Company was led by American colonel William Duer, a speculator who worked with a British colleague and several French men to register and organize the company in

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. Ostensibly working with the

Ohio Company The Ohio Company, formally known as the Ohio Company of Virginia, was a land speculation company organized for the settlement by Virginians of the Ohio Country (approximately the present U.S. state of Ohio) and to trade with the Native Americ ...

to purchase land in the

Northwest Territory The Northwest Territory, also known as the Old Northwest and formally known as the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, was formed from unorganized western territory of the United States after the American Revolutionary War. Established in 1 ...

, agents of this institution sold worthless deeds to French people intending to emigrate to the United States. Many were refugees from the excesses of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

, and the émigrés were made up of minor aristocrats, merchants, artisans and craftsmen. The Scioto Company did not own the land it was selling.

History

The Scioto Land Company was founded by American speculator Colonel William Duer and others in 1787 after the

was organized. It was officially established in 1789 as the ''Compagnie du Scioto'' in

by American

Joel Barlow Joel Barlow (March 24, 1754 – December 26, 1812) was an American poet, and diplomat, and politician. In politics, he supported the French Revolution and was an ardent Jeffersonian republican. He worked as an agent for American speculator Wil ...

;

William Playfair William Playfair (22 September 1759 – 11 February 1823), a Scottish engineer and political economist, served as a secret agent on behalf of Great Britain during its war with France. The founder of graphical methods of statistics, Playfai ...

, a Scot who was the agent of Duer and his associates abroad; plus six Frenchmen. This company had arranged in 1787 with the

, for the use of about (another source says about ), Peters 1918 : 178 north of the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of ...

and east of the

Scioto River The Scioto River ( ) is a river in central and southern Ohio more than in length. It rises in Hardin County just north of Roundhead, Ohio, flows through Columbus, Ohio, where it collects its largest tributary, the Olentangy River, and meets t ...

, on which the Ohio Company had secured an option. The dishonesty of those who conducted the sales in France, the shady methods of Barlow, and the failure of Duer and his associates to meet their contract with the Ohio Company, caused the collapse of the Scioto Company early in 1790. Two subsequent attempts to revive it failed. Meanwhile, about had been purportedly "sold" to prospective settlers, companies and individuals in France. On February 19, 1791, 218 of these purchasers left Havre de Grace, in France, and arrived on May 3 in Alexandria, District of Columbia (now Alexandria, Virginia). They were among a group known as the French 500, many of whom were fleeing the disruption of the French Revolution. On their arrival, they were told that the Scioto Company owned no land. When they reached

Marietta, Ohio Marietta is a city in, and the county seat of, Washington County, Ohio, United States. It is located in southeastern Ohio at the confluence of the Muskingum and Ohio Rivers, northeast of Parkersburg, West Virginia. As of the 2020 census, Ma ...

, along the Ohio River, about fifty of them landed. In October 1791, the rest of the company proceeded to Gallipolis, which was laid out about that time. It is now within Gallia County, Ohio. The developer had built rude huts for the group, who were mostly urban residents with few skills to survive on the undeveloped frontier. The agent assured them that this site was within the boundary of their purchase. This land, however, fell within the limits of the tract bought outright by the Ohio Company. It had sold it to the Scioto Company, but reclaimed it after Scioto Company failed to complete its payments. In 1794, William Bradford, the U.S. Attorney General, decided that all rights in the on which the Ohio Company had secured an option for the Scioto Company were legally vested in the Ohio Company. In 1795, the Ohio Company sold to the French settlers for $1.25 an acre ($309/km²) the land they occupied and adjacent improved lots. They effectively had to pay twice for their land. Learning of their plight, in 1795 the

United States government The federal government of the United States (U.S. federal government or U.S. government) is the national government of the United States, a federal republic located primarily in North America, composed of 50 states, a city within a feder ...

granted the French some in the southern part of what is now

Scioto County, Ohio Scioto County is a county located along the Ohio River in the south central region of the U.S. state of Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 74,008. Its county seat is Portsmouth. The county was founded March 24, 1804, from Adams C ...

, with lengthy frontage on the Ohio River. - Text of Act of March 3, 1795

Library of Congress The Library of Congress (LOC) is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the ''de facto'' national library of the United States. It is the oldest federal cultural institution in the country. The libra ...

This is known as the First

French Grant The proposed purchase by the Scioto Company is shown in red. The proposed purchase by the Ohio Company is in blue. The final purchase by the Ohio Company is in green. The French Grant is orange., 350px The French Grant (also known as the Frenc ...

. Some of the company moved to that area, but most remained in Gallipolis, committed to the land they had started to develop. Four thousand acres of the French Grant were reserved for John Gabriel Gervais, and 20,000 acres were to be divided among the remaining inhabitants of Gallipolis. Eight inhabitants of Gallipolis somehow missed out on the 1795 distribution. In 1798 Congress made an additional adjacent grant, the Second Grant, of for these eight. - Text of Act of June 25, 1798

With their lives having been started in Gallipolis, most of the French residents never occupied either of the grants; they either sold their allotted land or sent tenant farmers to occupy their plots. Peters 1918 : 176–183

Notes

References

* * {{Authority control Northwest Territory Companies established in 1787 Early American land companies Pre-statehood history of Ohio Gallia County, Ohio Scioto County, Ohio 1787 establishments in France French companies established in 1787