Ohio History Journal

WASHINGTON'S OHIO LANDS.

 

 

BY E. O. RANDALL,

Secretary Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Society.

On June 15, 1775, the Continental Congress passed the en-

actment establishing the Continental army and after fixing the

pay of the commander-in-chief at five hundred dollars a month,

proceeded, by ballot, to elect that officer. Washington was

unanimously chosen and this result was formally announced to

him on the next day, when the newly elected general had taken his

seat. Rising in his place, with the modesty and dignity so

characteristic of him, he "briefly expressed his high and grateful

sense of the honor conferred upon him and his sincere devotion

to the cause;" declaring with sincerity his lack of fitness for the

responsible position, and then added, "as to pay, I beg leave

to assure Congress that, as no pecuniary consideration could

have tempted me to accept this arduous employment, at the

expense of my domestic ease and happiness, I do not wish to

make any profit out of it. I will keep an exact account of my

expenses. Those I doubt not, they will discharge and that is

all I desire." To that decision Washington faithfully adhered.

Not only did he refuse the salary, which might have been his,

amounting in the aggregate to $48,000, but he further relinquished

also the land bounty, to which as general-in-chief he was entitled,

from Virginia, viz., 23,333.33 acres, which would have been worth

at the time he might have received them, ten dollars an acre,

aggregating therefore $233,333.33.  Thus the United States

received from General Washington his services and gifts of the

value of $281,333, or more than half the estate of which he died,

seized, which estate, including both personal and real property,

he himself estimated not long before his death, at over half a

million dollars.

When the French and Indian War arose the royal colonial

governor of Virginia, in order to encourage enlistments, offered

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304       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

grants of land from Virginia's western lands to those who would

serve in the war. In accordance with this bounty promise, the

Virginia governor on December 7, 1763, issued a land warrant

to one captain John Rootes, for 3,000 acres of land, locatable

on the lands of the colony northwest of the Ohio River. On

February 14, 1774, General George Washington, who had become

a large purchaser of land bounties, bought this warrant of John

Rootes and took an assignment thereof.

On March 1, 1784, Virginia ceded to the United States all

her lands northwest of the Ohio River, but reserving that part

of Ohio lying between the Little Miami and the Scioto rivers,

from a line between their respective sources to the Ohio River,

this section was known as the Virginia Military District of Ohio;

it comprised 6,570 square miles and 4,504,800 acres of land and

was thus reserved for the sole purpose of satisfying the bounties

promised by Virginia to her officers and soldiers who had served

either in the colonial or Continental army during the Revolution-

ary War. Not a foot of this land was ever sold by Virginia or

the United States government, but it was located on warrants

issued to Virginia officers and soldiers of the continental line,

their heirs and assigns. The bounty recipients or their assignees

securing their warrants, had their locations and surveys made

and assumed possession. This went on until January 1, 1852

when Congress, by law, declared all titles forfeited, the surveys

of which had not been returned to the land office at Washington,

prior to the date of this act. In August of the same year (1852),

at the request of Virginia, the national Congress passed a law

by which the outstanding Virginia Military Bounty Land War-

rants yet unsatisfied, could be exchanged for United States land

scrips -good for location in the far west. This discharged in

good faith. Virginia's pledges to her colonial veterans, which

pledges the federal government guaranteed when accepting the

cession of the Northwest Territory by Virginia.

We cannot go into the intricacies of the legislation by Con-

gress, at various times, or the entanglements of rights growing

out of frauds, neglects, mistakes and over-lapping locations by

the holders of land entries, warrants, etc. But we may add

that the Virginia Military District was the subject of national

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Washington's Ohio Lands.              305

legislation until February, 1871, when it was represented to Con-

gress that there were some 40,000 acres of land in the Virginia

Military District, which through errors, mislapping or incorrect

surveys, incomplete registration, etc., had never been actually

located and hence still belonged to the federal government, though

occupied by squatters or non-titled settlers. Congress then by

act ceded this surplus or orphan land to the State of Ohio, which

at once accepted the same and turned it over for the benefit and

use of the Ohio State University. Various other Congressional

acts, pertinent to the legal settlement of disputes concerning

the Virginia Military District lands, were passed, one even as

late as 1899.

But we revert to the Washington claim.

In addition to the John Rootes claim, which Washington

purchased, he bought, after the close of the Revolution and prior

to the summer of 1787, a warrant of 100 acres of land issued

to one Thomas Cope, for services in the Continental line of the

Revolutionary army. In the summer of 1787, Washington placed

these Rootes and Cope warrants in the hands of Colonel John

O'Bannon, a deputy surveyor of the Virginia Military District,

northwest of the Ohio river. Colonel O'Bannon, on said war-

rants, made the following entries of land:

On January 17, 1788 (No. 1650), 839 acres in what is now

Franklin township, Clermont county, Ohio; on May 13, 1788

(No. 1765), 1235 acres on the Little Miami River, three and one

half miles above the mouth of its east fork, in what is now Miami

township, Clermont county, Ohio.   These two entries were

made on the Rootes warrant (No. 3753) for the 3,000 acres. On

May 12, 1788, Colonel O'Bannon entered for Washington (No.

1775) for 977 acres; 848 acres of which are located in Union

township, Clermont county, and 129 acres in what is now And-

erson township, Hamilton county; 926 acres, of the above (977)

were made on warrant No. 3750, for 3,000 acres and 51 acres

were made on the Thomas Cope warrant for 100 acres, -the

remaining 49 acres of the Cope warrant do not seem to have ever

been located or surveyed. Washington thus secured in all 3,051

acres.

Vol. XIX-- 20.

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306      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

On April 4, 1788, there was made for Washington, survey

No. 1650, for 839 acres on the entry numbered 1650; on May 26

1788, there was made for him survey No. 1775, on the entry o

that number for 977 acres; and on May 27, 1788, there was made

for Washington, a survey No. 1765, on his entry of that numbe

for 1,235 acres.

These three entries and surveys, made by Colonel John

O'Bannon, were duly recorded in the books of Colonel Richar

C. Anderson, then the surveyor of the Virginia Military Distric

of Ohio, whose office was at Louisville, Ky., and who had serve

in the American Revolution as aide-de-camp to Lafayette, an

was the father of Major Robert Anderson, commanding at For

Sumter, April 1861, and of Charles Anderson, who as lieutenan

governor succeeded to the governorship of Ohio, upon the death

of governor John Brough, in August, 1865. These entries an

surveys were made under a law of the State of Virginia enacte

in October, 1783, and General Washington and his agents wer

under the impression that the warrants, entries and surveys

before mentioned, should for that reason, be returned to the lan

office of the State of Virginia at Richmond, which was done

sometime prior to April 20, 1790. The Virginia authorities is

sued the grants, which might be called the patents, at any rate

Washington now supposed he was secure in the title an

possession of his Ohio lands.

At this juncture an interfering law crossed the path o

Washington's title. The ceding by Virginia (1784) to the Unite

States, of its northwest lands, reserving the Military Distric

for the Virginia Revolutionary veterans, really left the fulfil

ment of Virginia's pledges to be worked out through the machin

ery of the federal government. On August 10, 1790, the federa

congress passed a law, on this subject, providing in substance

that the lands located between the Little Miami and Sciot

rivers should be applied as agreed upon in the Virginia cessio

and reservation; that the secretary of war should make retur

to the executive of the state of Virginia, the names of soldier

entitled to Virginia bounty lands, who had not yet receive

warrants; those thus entitled to and therefore locating lands i

the Military District should report their locations and survey

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Washington's Ohio Lands.              807

 

to the secretary of state at Washington, where they should be

recorded; the president of the United States was then authorized

to issue letters patent to the persons entitled to receive the same;

it was then the duty of the secretary of state to transmit these

letters patent to the executive of the state of Virginia, who was

in turn to deliver them to the grantees.

Washington as president of the United States signed this

law apparently without noticing or understanding that it affected

the title to his Ohio lands, which title he should have perfected

by recording, as provided, at the office of the secretary of state

in Washington. Washington's locations and surveys had been

reported only to the Virginia land office in Richmond. He still

thought that was sufficient. He should have at once complied

with this law by submitting his warrants to the requirements

therein provided. On December 1, 1790, grants were made by

Beverly Randolph, then governor of Virginia, to Washington

for each of his three surveys, under the belief, that, according

to the terms of the reservation, it was incumbent on the State

of Virginia to thus complete the title.

The entries and surveys above mentioned were well known,

at the time, to the locators and surveyors in the Virginia Mili-

tary District of Ohio and also the fact that they were made on a

"resolution" warrant. The warrants of Washington were those

purchased from Rootes who was entitled to them for services in

the French and Indian War and not the American Revolution.

The Virginia Military District of Ohio was reserved for bounties

accruing to Revolutionary veterans.

Were Washington's assignments from Rootes good in the

territory so reserved? We revert to the proceedings of the legis-

lature of Virginia, which on January 5, passed a joint resolution

providing that all persons who had served in the army of the

United States from May 1, 1779, until the close of the war

between Great Britain and America and had a land warrant in

his own right, or by assignment, before May 1, 1779, issued

agreeable to the proclamation of the King of Great Britain in

1763 -which confirmed the promise of Virginia to the soldiers

of the French and Indian War - might exchange the same with

the register of the land office for a warrant, which he should be

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308       Ohio. Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

permitted to locate on vacant land, reserved on the western side

of the Ohio River, for officers and soldiers in the Continental

army.   This "resolution" was supposed to cure any defect that

Washington's warrants and locations might have had. Hence

Washington's warrants were called "resolution" warrants.

That Washington regarded his titles as secure and believed

his Ohio lands as valuable and promising is evidenced by him

in an advertisement to sell, published in the Columbian Mirror

and Alexandria Gazette, February 20, 1796, viz.:

"On the Little Miami, upper side, within a mile of the Ohio,

830 acres; about seven miles up the said Miami, 977 acres, and

ten miles from  the mouth thereof, 12,235 acres.    Total on the

Little Miami, 3,042 acres."   These lots, he further states, "are

near to if not adjoining (the river only separating them) the

grant made to Judge Syms [Symmes] and others, between the

two   Miamis; and being in the neighborhood of Cincinnati and

Fort Washington, cannot, from their situation (if the quality of

the soil is correctly stated) be otherwise than valuable."

Then came another "cloud" as foreshadowed by the follow-

ing letters, the originals of which are now on file in the Library

of Congress:

MOUNT  VERNON, 30th July, 1798.

RICHARD C. ANDERSON, ESQ.,

SIR: -In the course of the last winter a Mr. Massey passed through

Alexandria on his way to Philadelphia and reported at the former place

that I should lose my land in the North West Territory on the Little

Miami.

Not perceiving how this could happen fairly, and not supposing

that it could be taken from me otherwise, without allowing me a hearing,

I paid but little attention to the report until Mr. George Graham called

on me the other day and in conversation on this subject gave it as his

opinion that the land was in real jeopardy by re-entry under some error

in the former proceedings, and advised me to write to you relative

thereto.

This I now do under full conviction, however, that as the former

surveys were made under your auspices; examined and recorded in

your office; and patents granted thereupon in the year 1790 with the

following recital. "In consideration of a military warrant of 3000 acres

granted to John Rootes by Lord Dunmore the 7th December, 1773 and

assigned by the said Rootes unto George Washington the 14th of

February 1774 and exchanged by a resolution of general assembly,

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Washington's Ohio Lands.                   309

 

passed the 30th of December, 1784, for a warrant of 3000 acres No.

3753 and dated the 14th of February 1785." I say under full conviction

that you would not suffer the land to be wrested from me by any sub-

sequent transaction in your office without giving me notice thereof in

time to assert my prior claims, I now give you the trouble of this address,

adding at the same time if anything is necessary on my part to give

more validity or greater legality to former proceedings, I am willing to

encounter the expense than enter into a tedious and expensive chancery

suit which I assuredly shall do before my property shall be taken from

me.

I would thank you Sir for full information, and your advice relative

to this matter as soon as it is convenient.

Most Obet. Hble. Servt.,

Go. WASHINGTON.

 

 

JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEAR LOUISVILLE,

September 5th, 1798.

SIR:-

Yours of the 30th of July I have the honor to receive and cannot

conceive from what circumstances Mr. Massie or Mr. Graham could

found an opinion that your military claim was in the least danger, no

other entry as yet to my knowledge having been made on the same ground.

It is probable, however, that the opinion was founded on a resolution

of Congress which was intended to prevent those; who from the time

of service are not entitled to lands; but from the liberality of the state

of Virginia obtained warrants by resolution of the assembly, but, as

this in my mind was not your case, yours being exchanged by a reso-

lution of Assembly, I did not trouble your excellency with the con-

jectures of a few on that head; and you may rest assured should any

attempt be made in this office, by entry or otherwise that I shall take

the liberty of giving you immediate notice thereof. And as it is a matter

of consequence, as I am informed yours are valuable lands. Provided you

think there can be the least danger from the lands being laid in con-

sequence of a resolution warrant that you make yourself acquainted with

that particular circumstance and if you think it in danger to send out

other warrants to cover its place.

With much respect and esteem, I have the honor to be,

Sir Your most

Ob. Servant.

RICHARD C. ANDERSON.

 

Washington made his will on July 9, 1799, and at that time

was under the belief that his title to his Ohio land was unassail-

able. With his will he prepared an inventory of his estate and

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310      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

sundry notes descriptive of his property for his executors; the

item naming these lands was as follows:

 

 

NORTH WEST TERRITORY.

On  Little   Miami ..................                    839

On  Little   Miami   ...................                  977

On  Little   Miami   ...................                  1235

 

3051 Acres @ 5, $15,255.

To the above item in his schedule he adds this note:

"The Quality of these lands & their situation may be known

by the surveyor's certificates, which are filed along with the

patents - They lye in the vicinity of Cincinnati, one tract near

the mouth of the Little Miami, another seven, & the third ten

miles up the same -I have been informed that they will readily

command more than they are estimated at."

 

His will provided at great length and particularity for the

disposal of most of his property, real and personal, - amounting

to over half a million dollars - to certain persons and heirs

as devisees; after naming the specific bequests he left all the

rest and residue of his estate, real and personal, "not disposed of

in manner aforesaid," to be distributed by his executors, of whom

there were five, the two active ones being Judge Bushrod Wash-

ington and Colonel Lawrence Lewis, his nephews, for the bene-

fit of certain named residuary legatees, twenty three in number.

The Ohio lands were comprised in this residuary estate. Wash-

ington died December 14, 1799. What became of his Ohio lands?

Washington's fears expressed by his letter to Colonel Ander-

son were not without foundation.

On February 26, 1806, one Joseph Kerr, then a deputy sur-

veyor of the Virginia Military District of Ohio, - and later

(1815) United States Senator from Ohio-well knowing the

Washington entries, surveys and warrants, had not been filed

with the Secretary of War, at Washington, made three entries,

completely covering the Washington locations. Indeed a compar-

ison of the field notes - giving metes and bounds - of the sur-

veyor for Washington and those of Kerr are so identical that

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Washington's Ohio Lands.              311

there is no doubt Kerr used the O'Bannon figures and descrip-

tions, which are easy accessible. Kerr's three entries, at Wash-

ington, were numbered 4847, 4848 and 4862, covering completely

and exactly Washington's entries numbered 1650, 1765 and 1775,

respectively. The entry and survey No. 4847-Washington's

No. 1650 -Kerr entered for 839 acres in the name of General

John Nevill, a Revolutionary soldier, formerly living at Pittsburg,

Pa., but who had died July 20, 1803, and the patent was issued

April 30, 1807, to Presley Nevill and Amelia Craig, son and

married daughter and devisees of General John Nevill. The

land embraced in survey No. 1765 (Washington's number) or

4848 Kerr's number, for 1235 acres, was also entered February

26, 1806, and on April 30, 1807, patent was issued to Presley

Nevill and Amelia Craig, devisees of John Nevill. The tract

included in No. 1775 (Washington's number) for 977 acres was

entered February 26, 1806, by Major Henry Massie, founder of

Portsmouth, Ohio. A patent was issued for this last entry, Jan-

uary 8, 1808. All these entries and surveys were put through

the requirements of the law of 1790, and the patents properly

secured. Subsequently, (in 1809) Joseph Kerr purchased the two

surveys Nos. 4847 and 4848 of Presley Nevill and Amelia Craig,

Kerr transferred to certain grantees and the present owners of

the land hold through his title. Henry Massie, patentee of Kerr's

survey No. 4862, duly sold to other parties and the present

owners of said survey claim and hold title from him.

The difficulties and disputes growing out of locations ir-

regularly entered, patented or relocated, -as we have before

stated-led to several acts by Congress, one of which passed

May   3, 1800, provided that patents issued by Virginia on the

cession reserved by that state could be validated by filing with

the proper officer, the previously granted entries, surveys and

patents, provided such patents did not conflict with grants al-

ready legally perfected; where conflicts occurred, the later party

could be recompensed by claiming other unoccupied lands. This

act (1800) gave Washington's executors the opportunity of per-

fecting the title to his lands, since Kerr at this time had not made

his entries. But they did not avail themselves of the opportunity.

Meanwhile notice of the hostile action of Joseph Kerr

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312      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

reached Bushrod Washington, one of Washington's executors,

and he wrote, on March 4, 1806, a letter to the register of the

Virginia land office, at Richmond, asking for the warrants and

papers connected with the title to the three tracts in question.

This letter was carried to Richmond and delivered in person by

Chief Justice Marshall. On March 14, 1806, the executors of

General Washington, Judge Bushrod Washington and Colonel

Lawrence Lewis, presented a petition to Congress asking it to

confirm Washington's title to his three surveys. This petition

was referred to the Committee of the House on Public Lands.

The matter went over to the second session of (the 9th) Con-

gress, when an act was passed on March 3, 1807, "authorizing

patents to issue for lands located and surveyed by virtue of cer-

tain Virginia resolution warrants." This act, which though a

general one, was passed especially to protect the Washington

entries, and provided that any officer or soldier of the Con-

tinental army, to whom a warrant has been issued "by virtue

of any resolution of the legislature of Virginia, as a bounty for

services," etc., should obtain a patent for the same if the location

was made within three years from March 23, 1808, and the sur-

vey be returned to the Secretary of War within five years from

the same date. This act, known as the "Washington Act," be

it remembered was passed March 3, 1807. But the Kerr entries

were made February 26, 1806; the surveys May 20, 1806; and

their recording made on June 2nd and 3rd, 1806; April 30, 1807,

patents were issued from the United States for the Nevill sur-

veys and on January 8, 1808, for the Massie survey. These

United States patents of Kerr therefore forestalled the perfecting

of the Washington "resolution" warrants.

Judge Bushrod Washington died in 1829 and Lawrence

Lewis died some four or five years later. Neither they nor the

other executors had done anything to secure the Ohio lands to

the heirs, and that realty was lost to the estate, which seems

practically to have been settled up by 1840, though in 1859, one

of the Washington heirs was appointed as administrator, by the

court in Fairfax county, Virginia, to adjust some unsettled bus-

iness - an heir had been overpaid several thousand dollars and

it was necessary to recover this and readjust it. At various

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Washington's Ohio Lands.             313

 

dates subsequent to 1852, as before noted, bills were enacted by

Congress concerning the unsettled claims of Revolutionary vet-

erans or their heirs, who held warrants in the Virginia Military

District. These were relief bills, one as late as 1899, and they

provided in the main that holders of such unsatisfied warrants

might exchange them for government land scrip-entitling the

holder to locations in the West.

But there were no administrators of the Washington estate

to avail themselves of this form of relief and the lost Ohio lands

of Washington, remained unnoticed or forgotten until the year

1907, when this matter was brought to the attention of the heirs

of Washington by Mr. Nelson W. Evans of Portsmouth, Ohio,

an attorney with wide experience in the land titles of Ohio and

Virginia. The result of his discoveries and investigations led

to the appointment, October 29, 1907, by the Fairfax county,

Virginia, circuit court, of Robert E. Lee, Jr., as administrator

de bonis non of General Washington. Robert E. Lee, Jr., is the

son of Major General William H. F. Lee of the Confederate

Army, and grandson of the late Confederate general-in-chief,

Robert E. Lee, who in 1831 married Mary Randolph Custis,

granddaughter of Martha Custis Washington. Robert E. Lee,

Jr., and other living descendants of the Washington estate pro-

ceeded to have the Nevill and Massie surveys appraised by John

Nichols-resident of Mount Washington, Anderson township,

Hamilton county, Ohio;-Frank Davis, resident of Batavia Cler-

mont county, Ohio, and William R. Fee of Portsmouth, Ohio.

They placed the value of the 3051 acres in question at an average

of $100.00 per acre,--it is probably worth double that amount-

not taking into account the improvements on the land. Robert

E. Lee, Jr., of Lexington, Va., Lawrence Washington, of Wash-

ington, D. C., and Samuel W. Washington of Charleston, W. Va.,

drew up a petition to the Congress of the United States, stating

the facts in the case and asking that an enactment be passed

authorizing the government to reimburse the estate of General

Washington, the sum of three hundred and five thousand one

hundred dollars, with interest thereon from the date of the peti-

tion. On December 5, 1907, bills were introduced both in the

Senate and in the House of Representatives, first session of the

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314  Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

60th Congress, calling for the amount named; "to reimburse the

estate of General George Washington for certain lands of his

in the State of Ohio, lost by conflicting grants made under the

authority of the United States."

 

Senate Bill No. 1238. (60th Congress, 1st Session.)

A BILL to reimburse the estate of General George Washington for

certain lands of his in the State of Ohio lost by conflicting grants

made under the authority of the United States.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the

United States of America in Congress assembled, That the Secretary

of the Treasury be, and he is hereby, directed to pay to Colonel Robert

E. Lee, Jr., administrator de bonis non, with the will annexed of General

George Washington, the sum of three hundred and five thousand one

hundred dollars, in full compensation to the estate of General Wash-

ington for the loss of his thirty-one hundred acres of land warrants

and the grants made thereunder, and for any and all claims which said

estate might or could make against the United States on account of land

warrants or grants held by him or his estate upon warrants locatable

northwest of the Ohio river.

 

House Bill No. 5489. (60th Congress, 1st Session.)

A BILL to reimburse the estate of General George Washington for cer-

tain lands of his in the State of Ohio, lost by conflicting grants made

under the authority of the United States.

Whereas at the close of the Revolutionary war General George

Washington was the owner of a three-thousand acre land warrant pur-

chased by him; and

Whereas the legislature of Virginia in seventeen hundred and eighty-

five, at his request, granted him a new warrant to be satisfied in the

Virginia military district of Ohio, which, together with another warrant

of one hundred acres owned by him, was located in seventeen hundred

and eighty-eight in said district in three surveys-sixteen hundred and

fifty, seventeen hundred and sixty-five, and seventeen hundred and seventy-

five; and

Whereas said locations were approved by Congress in the act of

August tenth, seventeen hundred and ninety, opening the district for

location; and

Whereas Congress, on the third day of March, eighteen hundred

and seven, passed an act entitled "An act authorizing patents to issue

for lands located and surveyed by virtue of certain Virginia resolution

warrants," which was enacted on petition of the executors of General

Washington to enable them to confirm their title to said grants; and

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Washington's Ohio Lands.                  315

 

Whereas by oversight and neglect of the proper officers of the

United States, before and after the passage of said act, other parties

were permitted to locate on General Washington's lands and obtain

patents therefor from the United States, and the grantees of these

patents and their assigns have held the land ever since; and

Whereas these patents were obtained during the time allowed by

the act of March third, eighteen hundred and seven, to the executors

of General Washington to perfect their title; and

Whereas the estate of General George Washington was never in any

default in completing its title after the opening of the district on August

tenth, seventeen hundred and ninety: Therefore

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the

United States of America in Congress assembled, That there is hereby

appropriated and shall be paid by the proper accounting officer of the

United States to Colonel Robert E. Lee, junior, appointed by the circuit

court of Fairfax County, Virginia, administrator de bonis non, with the

will annexed, of General George Washington, the sum of three hundred

and five thousand one hundred dollars, which shall be taken and received

by said administrator as full compensation to the estate of General

Washington for the loss of his three thousand one hundred acres of

land warrants and the grants made thereunder and for any and all claims

which his estate might or could make against the United States on

account of land warrants or grants held by him or his estate upon war-

rants locatable northwest of the Ohio River.

SEC. 2. That the act of March third, eighteen hundred and ninety-

nine, entitled "An act making appropriations for sundry civil expenses

of the Government for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, nineteen

hundred, and for other purposes," in so far as it required Virginia mili-

tary land warrants to be presented and surrendered to the Secretary of

the Interior within twelve months from the passage of said act or be

forever barred and invalid, is hereby repealed.

 

These bills were referred in the Senate and in the House

respectively to the Committee on Claims. Hearings were had

before the committees, particularly that of the House, by the

petitioners and counsel for the estate. But no action was taken

by either branch of Congress or by the committees, during the

first session of this (60th) Congress, a session continuing from

December 2, 1907, to May 30, 1908. Nor did this Congress in

its second session -December 3, 1908, to March 4, 1909-take

any action in the matter. But the House committee gave respect-

ful consideration to the bill and granted attentive hearings to

Messrs. Nelson W. Evans, Greenlee D. Letcher, of Lexington

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316       Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

 

Va., and Judge W. A. Washington of Kankakee, Ill. The state-

ments made by these gentlemen to the committee were published

by the committee, which, however, made no formal report. The

Senate committee took no action whatever. No attention what-

ever was paid to the subject in the special or first session of the

61st Congress, whiich convened March 15, 1909, and adjourned

August 5. The bill was re-introduced in the second session of

this (61st) Congress which began December 6, 1909, and con-

tinued till June 25, 1910. In the Senate it was referred to the

Committee on Claims, which shelved it in a sub-committee, where

it rested undisturbed.   In the House it was referred to the

Committee on Private Land Claims. This committee gave the

matter some serious consideration; it requested a statement of

the facts and opinion from Mr. R. A. Ballinger, Secretary of

the Interior, who made an investigation of the records and laws

in the premises in the proper departments, and reported the

same to the House committee. Mr. Ballinger closed his commu-

nication  to the committee with the clause, "the department

(Interior) accordingly recommends that the bill be not enacted

into law."   The committee, however, gave the petitioners two

respectful hearings, a report of the second of which was pub-

lished, containing a report of the committee favorable to the

enactment of the bill, for the committee says:

 

"The committee finds that the lands out of which General Wash-

ington's surveys were made were accepted from Virginia by the United

States on March 1, 1784, in trust for the satisfaction of Virginia mili-

tary bounty-land claims of the same character as those held by General

Washington, in his Rootes warrant for 3,000 acres, No. 3753, and in

Cope warrant for 100 acres No. 3670.

"That when this trust was created no time was fixed in the contract

between Virginia and the United States in which its execution was to be

completed, and none has ever been fixed subsequently.

"That this obligation of the United States to satisfy this claim was

recognized and affirmed in the first clause of Article VI of the Federal

Constitution.

"That the first Congress of the United States in the act of August

10, 1790, accepted this trust, and undertook its performance.

"That in the compact between the United States and the State of

Virginia, expressed in the resolution of the general assembly of Virginia

of date April 12, 1852 (Virginia, acts of 1852, p. 318), and in the act of

• 14
 

Washington's Ohio Lands.                  317

 

Congress of August 31, 1852 (vol. 10, p. 143), known as the 'scrip law,'

and in the resolution of the general assembly of Virginia of date De-

cember 6, 1852 (Virginia, acts of 1852, p. 357), accepting the scrip law,

there was no limitation on this obligation. There has been no further

compact between December 6, 1852, and the present time, and consequently

no limitation of any kind exists to the demand for the allowance of

this claim. We find it to be, as an obligation, a part of the public debt

of the United States and, as such, governed by the provisions of the

first clause of the sixth article of the Constitution, and by section 4 of

the fourteenth amendment, and that claimants have the right to demand

its satisfaction and payment, so long as there is any representative to

demand its payment, and so long as the evidence can be procured to

establish it."

 

It seems to have been the intention of the committee to

submit this report to the House, but that was not done and thus

the matter rests, pending the next session of Congress.

And this is the narrative of the curious claim of the Wash-

ington estate for the reimbursement of General Washington's

Ohio lands. It is a controversy of a century and a quarter and

rivals, in fact, some of the humorous fictions of the law's delays,

in the stories of Dickens and Mark Twain. It would seem that

this is an instance where the proverbial ingratitude of republics

should not be permitted to prevail. National parsimony has no

place in patriotism.  Washington gave, absolutely, his services

to his country, services perhaps no other one at the time, could

have contributed with successful results. As Mr. Nelson W.

Evans states in his plea for the petitioners, before the House

committee, it is not any bounty that is being asked, but rather

the discharge of a just debt. Congress satisfied bounties in land

to Virginia officers and soldiers to the amount of 4,334,800

acres and to the same class in land scrip bounties 1,041,916 acres.

The whole number of warrants issued by Virginia, says Mr.

Evans, for military and naval bounties to her officers was 6,146.-

950 acres. Congress bestowed rewards to many of the Revolu-

tionary generals, for example, General Peter Muhlenberg, 13,194

acres: General Hugh Mercer 10,000 acres; General Daniel Mor-

gan 23,334 acres; General Charles Scott 15,278 acres; General

Baron Steuben 15,000 acres; General George Rogers Clark 10,000

acres. Thaddeus Kosciusko, the Polish patriot, who was a col-

• 15
 

318      Ohio Arch. and Hist. Society Publications.

onel in the United States army during the American Revolution

received the sum of $12,280.49 as regular pay and in addition

Congress gave him, April 1800, warrants for 500 acres of land

which by the way, he located in Ohio, Franklin County, Perry

township, on the Scioto.

General Lafayette was the favorite of our national muni-

ficence and gratitude, for on March 3, 1803, Congress gave him

11,520 acres of land; on December 28, 1824, it gave him $200,000

in money and a township of land estimated worth $115,200;

all of this in addition to the pay of major general which he re-

ceived during his service as the friend of America's freedom, a

pay amounting to $24,400. England gave the Duke of Wellington

the estate of Strathfieldsaye, costing $1,315,000 for one day's

work in the Battle of Waterloo. General James Wilson, at a

banquet at Delmonico's February 22, 1894, related that when he

first visited the princely estate of Strathfieldsaye, he was sur-

prised and gratified to see a portrait of Washington, by Stuart,

occupying the place of honor in the Duke's drawing-room. In

answer to General Wilson's look of inquiry, the eldest son, of

the deceased Iron Duke remarked, "It was placed there by my

father, who esteemed Washington as perhaps the purest and

noblest character of modern times-possibly of all time-and,

considering the material of the armies with which he success-

fully met the trained and veteran soldiers of the Old World,

fairly entitled to a place among the great captains of the

Eighteenth Century."

Will Congress repudiate a just debt, a debt, it has ever

acknowledged to the "purest and noblest character of modern

times." the founder of this republic, upon which, in fulfillment

of the prophecy of Daniel Webster, "the nations of the earth

gaze with awe and admiration."

• 16