L I B RAHY OF THE UN IVERSITY Of ILLINOIS 526o9 P27b ILLINOIS HISTORY SUKV&Y WINNINGS OF THE -? AMERICAN RECTANGULAR LAND SURVEY SYSTEM, 1784-1800 William D. Pattison / oi THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO BEGINNINGS OF THE AMERICAN RECTANGULAR LAND SURVEY SYSTEM, 1784-1800 A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the Division of the Social Sciences in candidacy for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy DEPARTMENT OF GEOGRAPHY RESEARCH PAPER NO. 50 By William D. Pattison CHICAGO • ILLINOIS DECEMBER, 1957 COPYRIGHT 1957 BY WILLIAM D. PATTISON. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. PUBLISHED 1957. PRINTED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, U.S.A. ERRATA Page 22, line $ for "not" read "now" Page 57, last paragraph, line 2 for "charter" read "chapter" Page lbk, footnote 2, last line for "1876" read "1786" Page 173 > footnote 1, line 1 to be written in blank after letter "p.": "21" Fig. 1 (p. 9) across all of the Northwest should be written* "Virginia 1 s Claim" Fig. 3 (p. 12) under Ft. Greenville, for "Treaty, 1795", read "Treaty, 179*i" PREFACE In a sense, this study began in London, England, nearly five years ago, when my attention was drawn to the United States public land surveys by H. C. Darby of the Department of Geography, University College London. Interest centered at first in finding out uses to which the descriptive content of the public land sur- vey records had been put, and I undertook an inquiry along this line which was later completed at the Department of Geography, Indiana University, under the sponsorship of Norman J. G. Pounds. Meanwhile , the public land survey system as a whole had become increasingly interesting, and preliminary research in Washington and elsewhere had suggested to me opportunities for contributing to an understanding of the system. It was as a returned student in the Department of Geography, University of Chicago, that I fixed upon the scope of the present study, in September, 1955, since which time research and writing have gone forward under the supervision of Wesley C. Calef. For assistance in research my thanks are extended prima- rily to Herman R. Friis and other members of the staff of the Na- tional Archives. For points of advice I wish to thank Earl G. Harrington of the Bureau of Land Management and F. J. Marschner of the Department of Agriculture. Further thanks are owed, for the use of unpublished material, to institutions named in the bibliography at the end of the study. For published material, I am indebted to the Library of Congress and to Harper Memorial Li- brary, University of Chicago. Two persons share credit for completion of the study at the present time. They are Elizabeth Ross and Joan Davis, who, in Washington and Chicago, respectively, held forth a helping hand in time of need. August, 1957 Chicago, Illinois William D. Pattison iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS vii INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter PART I: THE BASIS IN LAW I. THREE PRIOR CONSIDERATIONS 3 State Cessions Indian Cessions Jefferson's Plan for Western States II. THE ORIGINAL PLAN FOR A FEDERAL RECTANGULAR LAND SURVEY 37 The Southern System Reformed Division into Hundreds The Geographical Mile Rectangles and Meridians The Square-Mile Section The Question of Origins Review III. ADDITIONAL SURVEYING PROVISIONS IN THE FIRST PRO- POSED NATIONAL LAND ORDINANCE 68 Registers and Surveyors Trees, Chain, Plat and Compass The Identification of Lots Review IV. THE LAND ORDINANCE OF 1785 82 The Principle of Prior Survey The Rectangular Grid Retained Surveying and Numbering Geographer and Surveyors The Place of Beginning Review PART II: SURVEY OF THE SEVEN RANGES V. THE FIRST SCENE OF SURVEY 105 Pittsburgh and the Road from the East Fort Mcintosh Settlements on the Upper Ohio River Indian Tribes Lay of the Land in the Seven Ranges VI. A CHRONICLE OF SURVEYING, 1785-1788 119 Establishment of the Beginning Point The Geographer and Surveyors Assemble — TABLE OF COBTEKTS Continued Chapter Page Surveying, 1785 Surveying, 1786 Surveying, 1787-1788 VII. THE QUALITY AND COST OF THE FIRST SURVEYS 144 The Quality of Surveying The Cost of Surveying VIII. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE FIRST SURVEYS 155 Influence upon Later Public Land Surveying Contribution to the Opening of the Northwest A Service to Mapping The Production of Historical Evidence PART III: INTERIM SURVEYING, AND FEDERAL SURVEYING RENEWED DC. PRIVATE SURVEYING UNDER THE LAND ORDINANCE OF 1785. 169 The Last Days of Thomas Hut chins Survey of the Ohio Company Lands Survey of the Miami Purchase X. HOW FEDERAL SURVEYING CAME TO BE RESUMED, UNDER THE LAND ACT OF 1796 185 The Indians Sustain a Decisive Defeat Land Companies Lose Their Leadership Passage of the Land Act of 1796 Federal Surveying Begins Again XI. STATUS OF THE AMERICAN RECTANGULAR LAND SURVEY SYSTEM IN 1800 205 Chain of Command The Contract System Surveying: Base Lines and Principal Meridians Surveying: General Procedure Survey Records XII. SUMMARY OF FINDINGS 220 The Rectilinear Grid Execution of Surveying The Founders Contributions to Mapping and Historical Knowledge Early Opinions for and against the Rectangular Survey System APPENDIX 232 BIBLIOGRAPHY 255 vi LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Figure Page Frontispiece. Extent of the American Rectangular Land Survey System 1. Claims in the Northwest by Virginia, Connecticut and Massachusetts 9 2. Lands Reserved in Virginia's Deed of Cession 9 3. Three Boundaries for Early Indian Cessions in the Northwest 12 4. Projected Boundaries for Western States, 1784 .... 18 5. Projected Boundaries for Western States, 1784, Shown on Contemporary Map Base 27 6. Lines Prescribed by the Northwest Ordinance for Bounding States 34 7. Jeffersonian Units of Land Subdivision 47 8. Solution to the Problem of Rectangles and Meridians . 54 9. Two Examples of Township-Bounding in New England. 91 10. Numbering of Townships and Lots under the Land Ordi- nance of 1785 99 11. The First Scene of Survey and Its Environs 106 12. The Seven Ranges 120 13. Surveying Diagrams 147 14. Ohio Company Lands and the Miami Purchase 171 15. The Three Areas First Surveyed under Land Act of 1796 189 16. Details of Surveying after Passage of Land Act of 1796 211 vii INTRODUCTION As a striking example of geometry triumphant over physi- cal geography, the general pattern of settlement in the vast area of the United States once owned by the national government (see Frontispiece) has often attracted the attention of writers on the American scene. Underlying the prevailing tendency toward a geo- metrically regular disposition of roads, fields and street plans, in this area, are lines which were laid down by federal surveyors prior to the transfer of land from federal to private ownership. These lines, bounding "Congressional" townships, each six miles square, and component sections, each one mile square, represent the American rectangular land survey system. The present study was prepared in order to increase our understanding of the American rectangular land survey system. Divided into three parts, the study consists of a report on the early years of the system's existence. The first part presents the original plan for national rectangular surveying—its back- ground, authorship, content and altered embodiment in the Land Ordinance of 1785. The second part consists of a chronicle and analysis of public land surveying under the Ordinance, that is, of the survey of the "Seven Ranges." The third part opens with an account of continued rectangular surveying, by private land Hvolfgang Langewiesche , for example, has called the rec- tilinear pattern of roads, oriented to the cardinal points of the compass, "one of the sights of the world," in his "The United States from the Air," Harper's Magazine , CCI (October, 1950) , 188. See also, on the view from the air, Christopher Tunnard , "Fire on the Prairie," Landscape , II (Spring, 1952), 11, and John S. Ra- dosta, "A New Yorker's Midwest Journal," New York Times , May 19, 1957, Sec. 2, Pt. II, p. 40. For the observations of two Euro- pean geographers on settlement patterns in this area, see Hans Boesch, Amerikanische Landschaft , Neu jahrsblatt der Naturf orschen- den Geselischaft in Zurich auf das Jahr 1955 (Zurich, 1955) , pp. 38-42, and Herbert Lehmann , "The Role of Law and Tradition in the Use of Agricultural Resources," Report of Seminar on Agricultural Utilization of Natural Resources, University of Chicago, Spring and Summer Quarters, 1952 (Mimeographed by Department of Geogra- phy, University of Chicago, November, 1952), pp. 2-3. Of the many examples of treatment of the same subject by American geog- raphers , one of the most recent may be found in John H. Garland (ed.) , The North American Midwest, A Regional Geography (New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1955), pp. 31-32. companies, and proceeds through a discussion of the Land Act of 1796 and of the early years of federal surveying which followed passage of that Act, leading finally to a description of the sta- tus of rectangular surveying in 1800. As the reader will discover, most of the pages in the study are taken up with a chronologically arranged narrative. This narrative, even where it broadens to include events indi- rectly associated with the main theme --development in the design and execution of surveying--compr Ises , together with accompanying descriptions, a simple factual record. To supplement the record and draw significance from it, Interpretations are offered which explain, for example, the motives behind adoption of the idea of rectangular surveying, and the special contributions made by pub- lic land surveyors, incidental to their primary mission of pre- paring a wilderness for sale. For a summary of principal find- ings, the reader is referred to the concluding chapter of the study.