The United States Military District was a land tract in central

Ohio Ohio () is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. Of the List of states and territories of the United States, fifty U.S. states, it is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 34th-l ...

that was established by the Congress to compensate veterans of the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

for their service. The tract contains in Noble,

Guernsey Guernsey (; Guernésiais: ''Guernési''; french: Guernesey) is an island in the English Channel off the coast of Normandy that is part of the Bailiwick of Guernsey, a British Crown Dependency. It is the second largest of the Channel Islands ...

, Tuscarawas, Muskingum, Coshocton,

Holmes Holmes may refer to: Name * Holmes (surname) * Holmes (given name) * Baron Holmes, noble title created twice in the Peerage of Ireland * Chris Holmes, Baron Holmes of Richmond (born 1971), British former swimmer and life peer Places In the Uni ...

Licking Licking is the action of passing the tongue over a surface, typically either to deposit saliva onto the surface, or to collect liquid, food or minerals onto the tongue for ingestion, or to communicate with other animals. Many animals both gro ...

, Knox, Franklin,

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent ...

, Morrow, and Marion counties.

History

The

Congress A congress is a formal meeting of the representatives of different countries, constituent states, organizations, trade unions, political parties, or other groups. The term originated in Late Middle English to denote an encounter (meeting of ...

had little money to pay the soldiers who fought for independence. They made promises of land to induce army enlistment. By resolutions of September 16 and 18, 1776, and August 12, September 22, and October 3, 1780, they proposed to give each officer or private continuously to serve in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

army until the close of the war, or until discharged, or to the representatives of those slain by the enemy, the amounts in the table. Under the

Land Ordinance of 1785 The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress of the Confederation on May 20, 1785. It set up a standardized system whereby settlers could purchase title to farmland in the undeveloped west. Congress at the time did not have ...

, land was made available in the

Seven Ranges The Seven Ranges (also known as the Old Seven Ranges) was a land tract in eastern Ohio that was the first tract to be surveyed in what became the Public Land Survey System. The tract is across the northern edge, on the western edge, with the sou ...

for bounties, but this proved inadequate.

Location and subdivision

On June 1, 1796, Congress created the United States Military District, sometimes called the USMD Lands, or USMD Survey. The boundaries of the district were to start at the northwest corner of the Seven Ranges, now known as the

Seven Ranges Terminus Seven Ranges Terminus is a stone surveying marker near Magnolia, Ohio that marks the completion of the first step in opening the lands northwest of the Ohio River to sale and settlement by Americans. This survey marked the first application of th ...

(), then proceed south along the west edge of the Seven Ranges (), then proceed due west to 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 ...

(), then up the Scioto River to the

Greenville Treaty Line The Treaty of Greenville, formally titled Treaty with the Wyandots, etc., was a 1795 treaty between the United States and indigenous nations of the Northwest Territory (now Midwestern United States), including the Wyandot and Delaware peoples ...

(), then northeast along the Greenville Treaty Line to Fort Laurens (), then up the

Tuscarawas River The Tuscarawas River is a principal tributary of the Muskingum River, 129.9 miles (209 km) long, in northeastern Ohio in the United States. Via the Muskingum and Ohio rivers, it is part of the watershed of the Mississippi River, draining an ...

to a point due west of the Seven Ranges Terminus, then east to the point of beginning. It turned out that the Tuscarawas River leg was unnecessary because Fort Laurens happens to be due west of the Seven Ranges Terminus. This tract contains 2,539,110 acres. Survey of the land began in March, 1797. The land was to be divided into

survey township A survey township, sometimes called a Congressional township or just township, as used by the United States Public Land Survey System, is a nominally-square area of land that is nominally six U.S. survey miles (about 9.66 km) on a side. E ...

s five miles (8 km) square (16000 acres), the only instance of a government conducted survey not based on the six mile (10 km) square township standard of the

Public Land Survey System The Public Land Survey System (PLSS) is the surveying method developed and used in the United States to plat, or divide, real property for sale and settling. Also known as the Rectangular Survey System, it was created by the Land Ordinance of 178 ...

. Other instances of five mile square townships were for the Firelands and

Connecticut Western Reserve The Connecticut Western Reserve was a portion of land claimed by the Colony of Connecticut and later by the state of Connecticut in what is now mostly the northeastern region of Ohio. The Reserve had been granted to the Colony under the terms o ...

, which were privately surveyed. Each township was divided into quarters of . Ranges were numbered starting from the meridian along the east edge, and townships were numbered starting from the baseline along the south of the tract. The quarter townships were numbered starting with 1 in the northeast and proceeding anti-clockwise. The Act of March 1, 1800 - Text of Act of March 1, 1800

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 ...

provided for dividing quarter townships into lots of each, 880 yards in width by 550 yards in height. On March 3, 1803, the unclaimed land was divided into one mile (1.6 km) square

sections Section, Sectioning or Sectioned may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Section (music), a complete, but not independent, musical idea * Section (typography), a subdivision, especially of a chapter, in books and documents ** Section sig ...

and into half sections, and sold as essentially Congress Lands by the Chillicothe and

Zanesville Zanesville is a city in and the county seat of Muskingum County, Ohio, United States. It is located east of Columbus and had a population of 24,765 as of the 2020 census, down from 25,487 as of the 2010 census. Historically the state capi ...

land offices. - Text of Act of March 3, 1803

Claims

In the USMD, as elsewhere in the surveyed lands, many veterans sold their warrants to speculators or jobbers at a fraction of their true value. Of the claimed by land warrant, were patented to just 22 persons. The actual location of the 262 quarter townships claimed by military warrants was determined by a drawing. Few absentee owners ever visited their land, and fewer still spent any time on it. They sold it, sight unseen, as a speculative venture, often paying no regard to any attachment of sale made by Ohio officials for delinquent taxes. By 1823, the United States government had issued 10,958 warrants for service in the Revolutionary War totaling , and more were issued under various laws thereafter. These warrants could only be used in the USMD except for those used in 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 ...

lands or in the

Symmes Purchase The Symmes Purchase, also known as the Miami Purchase, was an area of land totaling roughly in what is now Hamilton, Butler, and Warren counties of southwestern Ohio, purchased by Judge John Cleves Symmes of New Jersey in 1788 from the Conti ...

. Veterans who held on to their warrants finally received relief by the act of May 30, 1830, which allowed them to exchange their warrants for land scrip issued in amounts, good for $1.25 an acre on land anywhere in the public domain available for private entry. This act, plus seven other warrant exchange acts, caused more than of land scrip to be issued. Researchers will find that land scrip could be bought cheaply, depending on market conditions. Its use in land transactions does not infer the holder was entitled to it by military service. Veterans often sold their land scrip to land jobbers.

Exclusions

The Moravian Indian Grants at the Tuscarawas County villages of Schoenbrunn, Gnaddenhutten and Salem are independent surveys, not on the same grid, within the USMD. Part of the independent “Muskingum River Survey” of

Zane's Tracts Zane's Tracts were three parcels of land in the Northwest Territory of the United States, later Ohio, that the federal government granted to Ebenezer Zane late in the 18th century, as compensation for establishing a road with ferry service over ...

also lies in the USMD.

Notes

References

* * *

External links

* {{Ohio-Lands Former regions and territories of the United States Veterans' affairs in the United States Geography of Ohio Pre-statehood history of Ohio History of the Midwestern United States Surveying of the United States Coshocton County, Ohio Delaware County, Ohio Franklin County, Ohio Guernsey County, Ohio Holmes County, Ohio Knox County, Ohio Licking County, Ohio Marion County, Ohio Morrow County, Ohio Muskingum County, Ohio Noble County, Ohio Tuscarawas County, Ohio Veterans' settlement schemes