Land that was settled before 1785, chiefly that along the Eastern seaboard, was acquired and sold using descriptions that were based upon the landmarks and physical characteristics of the land itself – streams, hills, such prominent features as notable trees, and the like – in order to establish where this land abutted other properties. This system was generally termed "metes and bounds" (that is, meeting points and boundaries). The process for turning unsettled land (tellingly, often described as "waste" land) into a particular person's property typically went as follows. The claimant or original purchaser first obtained – by grant or otherwise – the right to acquire a certain number of acres. He would then select the particular land he desired, marking (usually by blazing or "tomahawking" trees) where it met the property of someone else or some noteworthy natural feature. These were the claimant's "metes," connected by "bounds," which were measured by chain lengths (typically 80 chains equaled one mile) or a certain number of rods, a rod an old measurement equal to 16 1/2 feet. The settler paced off the bounds to make sure the acreage he was claiming matched that he was allowed.
Naturally, a settler carved out of the wilderness facing him what he thought would be the most desirable total acreage he was entitled to, which as he sought to incorporate adequate water supply, fertile ground, and other choice pieces and others did the same with their selections brought into being a jumble of odd-shaped parcels with many angles – and often as many owners. Next, the settler or the pertinent jurisdiction engaged a surveyor to make a more precise survey of the property, which when the surveyor signed it made the settler eligible to claim his deed from the colony, the proprietor, or whoever else was making the land available.
Deeds recording later land transactions sometimes repeated the metes and bounds verbatim, but after enough time had passed, the descriptions so carefully written down the original survey ("from two red oak trees on a knoll" or "to the rock outcropping above the big curve in the stream bed") could lose all meaning. Even when the physical features in the descriptions survived after all those years there could be confusion over which two oak trees or which curve in the stream bed the original survey had been based upon. Trying to track today who owned what land using the metes and bounds that were noted two centuries or more ago is at best a very difficult process.
The metes and bounds descriptions prevailed principally for those of our families who lived in the Eastern seaboard areas, as well as for those who occupied land in what would become West Virginia and Kentucky. Parts of Ohio and the other areas to the west, however, became the property of the United States by the late 1780s. Sale of this unsettled land was a major source of revenue for the new national government. To describe and sell this "public" or "government" land, the United States devised a wholly new system of descriptions called the rectangular survey system. Beginning with the land legislation of the 1780s, the rectangular survey system became the standard technique that Americans would use as they settled the remainder of the continent.
In the rectangular survey system, various imaginary horizontal Meridians and vertical Base Lines were surveyed and drawn, after which tiers of Ranges (running north and south) and Townships (running east and west) were laid off from Meridians and Base Lines in great parallel strips until another Meridian or Base Line was reached. Any particular point within the grid formed by the crisscrossing strips could, therefore, be described by its Range and Township numbers in relation to the nearest unique Meridians and Base Lines between which this point lies. The horizontal divisions, also called Townships, were, with few exceptions (notably in Ohio) six miles by six miles and were the basis for identifying specific plots of land. These Townships used for land identification were not always identical to the political townships that counties created as smaller governmental and administrative units within the overall county; the political townships, which were given names (Cass, Sugar Ridge) and could incorporate land from one or more of the Townships and Ranges that were used for land identification.
The horizontal Townships were divided into smaller entities called Sections that were one mile by one mile in size. There were usually thirty-six Sections of 640 acres each in every Township. The Sections were numbered consecutively, beginning with Section 1 at the northeastern corner of the Township. The numbers continued across the top, down to the west end of the second row and thence east to the edge of the Township, then down to the east end of the third row and back to the west, and so forth until Section 36 was reached at the far southeastern corner of the Township. Every Township was divided up in this same manner, using the same numbering system.
The Sections were further subdivided into square units called half-sections (320 acres) and quarter-sections (160 acres), which in turn could be divided into four 40-acre parcels. Generally speaking, the smallest quantity of public land sold was 40 acres, one-quarter of a quarter-section, and it was years before that small a minimum purchase was allowed by law. These various subdivisions of the Sections were described using the four points of the compass (that is, they were the northwest, northeast, southeast, and southwest quarters of Section 10). These four quarter-sections of 160 acres each could themselves be divided and described in the same manner, so that each one had four equal 40-acre portions, also, somewhat confusingly, called the northwest, northeast, southeast, and southwest quarters. Thus, a particular 40-acre parcel might be described as being the southwest quarter of the 160-acre southwest quarter of Section 10. It would be bounded on the north by the northwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 10 and on the east by the southeast quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 10, both having 40 acres; the remaining one-fourth of the southwest quarter of Section 10 (the northeast quarter of that southwest quarter) would be diagonally opposed to the southwest quarter of the southwest quarter of Section 10, where the two would touch at the very center of that section's 160-acre quarter.
All of these imaginary lines were surveyed before any land sales took place. Indeed, surveyors were often the first people to set foot on most of the land that makes up the American continent beyond the Eastern seaboard. Poorly paid and with a minimum of manpower and equipment, these surveyors braved the elements, Indian attacks, and primitive conditions to put down on paper the framework within which settlers would establish themselves and development would proceed. Mostly the surveyors did a fine job, although some of them succumbed to temptation and used their offices for private gain. Others were less than competent or energetic. But surveyors are unsung heroes of the westward development of this nation.
Once the surveying was completed, which often took many years, the General Land Office, the government bureau that controlled the western lands, would advertise the sale by auction of the land in question. These sales were often occasions of considerable interest within the community, rivaling the periodic court days. People would gather in order to inspect the official registers of available tracts, discuss the value of the land to be sold, and speculate about possible buyers. The purchase of land was of more lasting importance to the family that obtained it. These acres would determine its destiny for many years to come, perhaps for generations. If they chose well, the family could expect a secure and bountiful (if difficult) future; if not, their investment of capital and labor might be in vain, leaving them little choice but to move on or give up their hope of owning their own land.
National land policy from 1785 until the Civil War was characterized by smaller and smaller minimum purchases, from 640 acres in 1785 to 320 acres in 1800 to 160 acres in 1804 to 80 acres in 1820, and finally to 40 acres in 1832. The minimum price was fixed at $1 per acre in 1785 but was raised to $2 per acre in 1796. In 1804 it was reduced again (to $1.64 per acre for cash purchases and $2 per acre for credit purchases), and in 1820 the minimum purchase price was made $1.25 per acre. It was kept at this amount until the Civil War. Between 1800 and 1820, purchasers could obtain land on credit, making a 25% down payment in cash and paying the remainder in three annual installments. This provision led to so much indebtedness and failure to pay that it was terminated.
The practice of "preemption," in which persons gained the right to purchase land on which they had personally settled (or that they had been cultivating) before it was offered for public sale, was not permitted until 1830 and was not made permanent until 1841. Most of the public land purchases described in this family history narrative came during or following the 1830s, after the minimum acreage had been reduced to 80 and then 40 acres. Because of the growing backlog of land sales and understaffing at the General Land Office, there was often considerable delay – sometimes several years – between the time a person entered and purchased land, then applied for a patent, and the time when the patent was actually signed at the General Land Office in Washington, D.C. The date of the patent is, therefore, often only a rough guide as to when the buyer actually took possession and began living on it. Only an inspection of state tract books, some held by the states and some at the National Archives, can determine the actual purchase date. Purchases made during the 1830s and later could have been made through preemption; unfortunately, there is no easy way to identify such purchases.
Once public land was in private hands it could be resold, either as it had been purchased from the government or in portions, not necessarily the ones that were used in the rectangular survey system. Over the two centuries since this system was inaugurated, many of the original plots have been subdivided or broken up entirely, which has created its own patchwork of parcels, but in a surprising number of instances the original plots have remained intact – sometimes in the hands of the original families.
With the rectangular survey system there could be no confusion then, or today either, about the precise location of a particular piece of land: the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 8, Township 3 North, Range 6 West in relation to a particular Base Line and Meridian can mean only one place in the United States, and this description will never change. The rectangular survey system was applied ruthlessly, whatever the terrain or features, though there were accommodations for inaccessible points and the curvature of the earth. This explains why much of America is laid out in a rigid geometric fashion, often perfect squares. Whatever one may think of it on esthetic grounds, the rectangular survey system at least enables us to give a particular parcel of land a unique, unmistakable, and timeless description.
Wherever possible I have cited the survey designations, along with the United States Geological Survey map on which the property is found. Thus it is that we can with ease identify, and usually go right to, the very acreage that some of the people in this family history staked out up to two hundred years ago.
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rev. 8/26/10
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