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No attempts were made to establish permanent
settlements in the Miami country until after the Revolutionary war, and
after Virginia had generously ceded her Western territory to the General
Government in 1784. The projector of the plan for the purchase and settlement
of the lands between the Miamis, was an ex-Member of Congress and Chief
Justice of the State of New Jersey- John Cleves Symmes.
This is not the place to give the history of Symmes' Purchase, although
the earlier settlers of this county derived their titles from Judge Symmes.
The whole history of that grand but unfortunate land speculation is fully
narrated in Judge Burnet's excellent "Notes on the
Northwestern Territory." It is sufficient for our purpose that Symmes
proposed to Congress to purchase a tract between the Miamis, supposed
to contain 2,000,000 acres; that when his contract was made with Congress,
the amount was reduced to 1,000,000; that it was afterward found that
there were but 600,000 acres between the two rivers up as far as the head-waters
of the Little Miami; that Symmes having paid for only half that quantity,
received a deed for a tract of 311,682 acres, being the number of acres
including school and ministerial lands and other reservations, for which
he had made payment The northern boundary of Symmes' patent is an east-and-west
line, passing from a point on the Little Miami a short distance below
Freeport to the Great Miami about three miles below Middletown.
Symmes published a pamphlet at Trenton, N. J., November 26, 1787, giving
the terms of sale and settlement of the Miami lands. As the lands about
the Muskingum had been purchased by a New England Company, Symmes' Pur-
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chase was intended chiefly for the accommodation for the
inhabitants of the States west of the Connecticut River. The price of the
lands of this purchase was 66 2/3 cents per acre, payable in certificates
of debts of the Government and in land-warrants. But as the certificates
of debts due from the United States were then worth only one fourth of their
face, the specie price at which Congress sold all the land from Cincinnati
to Hamilton and Lebanon now the most valuable tract in the State was about
17 cents per acre. The lands were sold to settlers in quantities of not
less than 160 acres, and the purchaser was bound to begin improvements within
two years or to forfeit one sixth part of his purchase, which might be given
by Symmes to any one who would settle thereon and remain seven years. One
penny or the ninetieth of a dollar per acre was to be paid at the time of
purchasing the land-warrant to defray the expense of surveying the tract;
and one farthing, or the one three hundred and sixtieth of a dollar per
acre to defray the expenses of printing the land-warrant and registering
the entries. Such were the terms under which some of our fathers contracted
for our homes.
Ministers of the Gospel were cordially invited in Symmes' pamphlet to
settle in the new country, and were offered the free use of Section 29,
set apart in every township for the support of the Gospel. Schoolmasters
were offered the free use of Section 16, reserved for the benefit of schools.
The policy of setting apart public lands for the support of religion was
discontinued by Congress after the adoption of the National Constitution;
but the reservation of one section in every township for the support of
schools has been continued till the present time in the sale of all the
public lands. We thus have in Warren County the anomaly of the churches
in one fourth of the county receiving out of a provision of the old Federal
Congress a bounty of from $1 to $2 annually for each church member; while
in three fourths of the county ministerial lands are unknown, and religion
is supported only by voluntary contributions. And an experience of more
than three quarters of a century has taught us that the donation of public
lands for the support of religion, however well intended, was not wisely
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