Land Ordinance of 1785
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The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress on May 20, 1785. Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress did not have the power to raise revenue by direct taxation of the inhabitants of the United States. Therefore, the immediate goal of the ordinance was to raise money through the sale of land in the largely unmapped territory west of the original colonies acquired from Britain at the end of the Revolutionary War.
In addition, the act provided for the political organization of these territories. The earlier Ordinance of 1784 called for the land west of the Appalachian Mountains, north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River to be divided into ten separate states. However, it did not define the mechanism by which the land would become states, or how the territories would be governed or settled before they became states. The Ordinance of 1785, along with the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, were intended to address these political needs.
The 1785 ordinance laid the foundations of land policy in the United States of America until passage of the Homestead Act in 1862. The Land Ordinance established the basis for the Public Land Survey System. The initial surveying was performed by Thomas Hutchins. After he died in 1789, responsibility for surveying was transferred to the Surveyor General. Land was to be systematically surveyed into square "townships", six miles (9.656 km) on a side. Each of these townships were sub-divided into thirty-six "sections" of one square mile (2.59 km²) or 640 acres. These sections could then be further subdivided for sale to settlers and land speculators.
The ordinance was also significant for establishing a mechanism for funding public education. Section 16 in each township was reserved for the maintenance of public schools. Many schools today are still located in section sixteen of their respective townships, although a great many of the school sections were sold to raise money for public education. In theory, the federal government also reserved sections 8, 11, 26 and 29 to compensate veterans of the Revolutionary War, but examination of property abstracts in Ohio indicates that this was not uniformly practiced. The Point of Beginning for the 1785 survey was where Ohio (as the easternmost part of the Northwest Territory), Pennsylvania and Virginia (now West Virginia) met, on the north shore of the Ohio River near East Liverpool, Ohio. There is a historical marker just north of the site, at the state line where Ohio Route 39 becomes Pennsylvania Route 68.
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[edit] History
The Continental Congress appointed a committee consisting of
- Thomas Jefferson Virginia Chairman
- Hugh Williamson North Carolina
- David Howell Rhode Island
- Elbridge Gerry Massachusetts
- Jacob Read South Carolina.
On May 7 1784, the committee reported “An ordinance for ascertaining the mode of locating and disposing of lands in the western territories, and for other purposes therein mentioned.” The ordinance required the land be divided into “hundreds” of ten miles square, and subdivided into lots of one mile squared each, numbered starting in the northwest corner, proceeding from west to east, and east to west consecutively. After debate and amendment, the ordinance was reported to Congress April 26, 1785. It required surveyors “to divide the said territory into townships seven miles square, by lines running due north and south, and others crossing these at right angles. --- The plats of the townships, respectively, shall be marked into sections of one mile square, or 640 acres” This is the first recorded use of the terms “township” and “section.”
On May 3, 1785, William Grayson of Virginia made a motion seconded by James Monroe to change “seven miles square” to “six miles square.” The ordinance was passed on May 20, 1785. The sections were to be numbered starting at 1 in the southeast and running south to north in each tier to 36 in the northwest. The surveys were to be performed under the direction of the Geographer of the United States, (Thomas Hutchins). The Seven Ranges, Miami Valley Tract, and the Symmes Purchase of the Ohio Lands were the surveys completed with this section numbering.
The act of May 18, 1796 provided for the appointment of a surveyor-general to replace the office of Geographer of the United States, and that “sections shall be numbered, respectively, beginning with number one in the northeast section, and proceeding west and east alternately, through the township, with progressive numbers till the thirty-sixth be completed.” All subsequent surveys were completed with this section numbering system except the United States Military District of the Ohio Lands which had five mile square townships as provided by the Act of June 1, 1796 and amended by the Act of March 1, 1800. [1]
Thomas Hutchins is given credit for conceiving the rectangular system of lots of one square mile in 1764 while a captain in the sixtieth Royal-American regimen, and engineer to the expedition under Col. Henry Bouquet to the forks of the Muskingum, in what is now Coshocton County, Ohio. It formed part of his plan for military colonies north of the Ohio, as a protection against Indians. The law of 1785 embraced most of the new system.[2]
