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 – where it abutted other properties. This system was generally termed "metes and bounds" (that is, meeting points and boundaries), and the process that prevailed went as follows. When new land was to be settled, the claimant 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 natural feature. These were the claimant's "metes," connected by "bounds," which were measured by chain lengths (typically 80 chains equaled one mile) or rods. 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 it sought to incorporate adequate water supply, fertile ground, and other choice pieces resulted in a jumble of odd-shaped parcels with many angles. Next, the settler hired 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 when enough time had passed since the original survey the descriptions so carefully written down at the outset ("from two cherry trees on a knoll" or "to the rock outcropping above the stream bed") could lose all meaning, and even when the physical features in the descriptions survived there could be confusion over which two cherry trees or 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 a very difficult process.
The metes and bounds descriptions prevailed for those of my 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 government by the late 1780s. Sale of this land was a major source of revenue for the new Federal 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 that Americans would use as they settled the remainder of the continent.
In this system, various imaginary horizontal Meridians and vertical Base Lines were drawn, after which tiers of ranges (running north and south) and townships (running east and west) were laid off in great strips. Within them the land was further divided into smaller entities called sections that were with few exceptions, six miles by six miles. There were usually thirty-six sections of 640 acres each in every township; each section was one square mile, in other words. Each section was numbered, beginning at the upper right (northeast) corner. The numbers continued across the top, down to the second row and east to the edge, down to the third row and back to the west, and so forth until the thirty-sixth section was reached at the far bottom right corner of the township. The sections were further subdivided into half sections (320 acres) and quarter sections (160 acres). Generally speaking, the smallest division sold was 40 acres – one-quarter of a quarter-section, and it was years before that minimum was established.
All of these lines were surveyed before 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 into 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 the surveyors are unsung heroes of the westward development of this nation.
Once the surveying was completed – and this often took many years, the General Land Office, which 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 view 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, they 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.
Federal 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 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 $2.00 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 settled (or that they had cultivated) 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 text came during 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 date 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 person actually began living on it. Only an inspection of state tract books, some held by the states and some by the National Archives, can determine the actual purchase date. Purchases made during the 1830s could have been made through preemption; unfortunately, there is no easy way to identify such purchases.
With the rectangular survey system there could be no confusion then, or today either, about the location of a particular piece of land: the northwest quarter of the southeast quarter of Section 8, Township 6 North, Range 6 West can mean only one place, 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, which explains why much of America is laid out in a rigid geometric fashion. Whatever one may think of it on esthetic grounds, the rectangular survey system at least enables us to give a particular piece of land a unique, unmistakable, and timeless description.
Wherever possible I have cited the survey descriptions, along with the United States Geological Survey map on which the property is found. Thus it is that we can with ease identify, and go right to, the exact acreage that some of the people in this family history staked out two hundred years ago.
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rev. 8/2/04
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