THE LUDLOW LINE.
R. W. MCFARLAND.
It is well known that Virginia claimed
most of the terri-
tory northwest of the Ohio river, by
reason of the grants made
by the sovereign of England to the
colonists. In 1784 in accord-
ance with a formal request made by
Congress in 1780, Virginia
ceded to the United States all her
claims to the territory, re-
serving only the lands between the
Scioto and the little Miami
rivers. This tract is usually called the
Virginia Military Dis-
trict. It was reserved for the purpose
of paying the Virginia
soldiers who had served in the
revolutionary war.
The two rivers flow from different
sources, and it was neces-
sary to draw a line from the head of one
stream to the head of
the other. In 1800 an act of
Congress directed the Surveyor
General to cause the line to be run from
the source of the Little
Miami to the source of the Scioto. The
line was run by one of
the surveyors, named Ludlow, whence the
name of the line. For
twenty feet on each side the trees were
cut down. The source of
the Miami thus determined is two or
three miles eastwardly from
South Charleston, in the southeast part
of Clark County. The
line runs northwesterly through the
counties of Clark, Cham-
paign, and Logan, about forty miles, to
the old Indian Boundary
Line as fixed by Wayne's treaty in 1795. In 1804 this line, to-
gether with its future extension beyond
the Indian Boundary to
the Scioto, was declared to be the
western line of the Virginia
Military District, provided Virginia
would agree to it within two
years. Virginia objected. The land west
of the Ludlow line had
been by this time, or shortly afterward,
surveyed into Townships
and Sections as Congress lands. By
reason of Virginia's ob-
jection, an act was passed in 1812,
ordering a new survey of the
dividing line. The commissioners of the
United States and of
Virginia met at Xenia in October of that
year, and a new line
was run, called the Roberts Line. It
began where Ludlow's Line
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