The Congress Lands was a group of land tracts in Ohio that made land available for sale to members of the general public through land offices in various cities, and through the United States General Land Office . It consisted of three groups of surveys:
22-535: The Ohio River Base consisted of the Congress Lands East of Scioto River, and Congress Lands North of Old Seven Ranges. These surveys had vertical rows of six mile square townships called Ranges . These ranges were numbered from Ellicott’s Line , the boundary between Ohio and Pennsylvania , also known as the Eastern Ohio Meridian . The townships within each range were surveyed north and south from
44-555: A Congressional township or just township , as used by the United States Public Land Survey System and by Canada's Dominion Land Survey is a nominally-square area of land that is nominally six survey miles (about 9.66 km) on a side. Each 36-square-mile (about 93.2 km ) township is divided into 36 sections of one square mile (640 acres , roughly 2.6 km ) each. The sections can be further subdivided for sale. The townships are referenced by
66-519: A numbering system that locates the township in relation to a principal meridian (north-south) and a base line (east-west). For example, Township 2 North, Range 4 East is the 4th township east of the principal meridian and the 2nd township north of the base line. Township (exterior) lines were originally surveyed and platted by the United States General Land Office using contracted private survey crews. Later survey crews subdivided
88-457: A similar format for survey townships, which do not form administrative units. These townships also have an area of approximately 36 square miles (six miles by six miles). These townships include road allowances, so their nominal dimensions are a bit longer than six miles. In the first and second phases of the survey ( Manitoba and parts of Saskatchewan ), townships are nominally 489 chains (6.11 mi; 9.84 km) east-west and north-south. In
110-758: A special category to itself. The Congress Lands West of Miami River consists of lands between the Great Miami River and Indiana , and south of the Greenville Treaty Line . Ranges are designated as east of the First Principal Meridian which is at the Ohio-Indiana border. Townships are numbered from south to north, with irregularities caused by the course of the Great Miami River. Congress Lands in northwest Ohio consist of North and East of
132-508: Is used to establish boundaries for land ownership, while a civil township is a form of local government . In states with civil townships, the two types of townships often coincide. County lines, especially in western states, usually follow survey township lines, leading to the large number of rectangular counties in the Midwest, which are agglomerations of survey townships. United States General Land Office The General Land Office ( GLO )
154-548: The Homestead Act and the Preemption Act in disposal of public lands. The frantic pace of public land sales in the 19th century American West led to the idiomatic expression "land-office business", meaning a thriving or high-volume trade. For most of the active period of public land settlement, district land offices were the basic operating units that conducted the business of transferring title. All transactions relative to
176-481: The Homestead Act of 1862, one quarter-section of land was the amount allocated to each settler. Stemming from that are the idiomatic expressions , "the lower 40", the 40 acres on a settler's land that is lowest in elevation, in the direction towards which water drains toward a stream, and the " back forty ", the portion farthest from the settler's dwelling. In western Canada, the Dominion Land Survey adopted
198-764: The Northwest Territory , including what is now the state of Ohio. Placed under the Department of the Interior when that department was formed in 1849, it was merged with the United States Grazing Service (established in 1934) to become the Bureau of Land Management on July 16, 1946. The GLO oversaw the surveying , platting , and sale of the public lands in the Western United States and administered
220-694: The President to withdraw timber lands from disposal. Grover Cleveland then created 17 forest reserves of nearly 18,000,000 acres (73,000 km ), which were initially managed by the GLO. In 1905, Congress transferred responsibility for these reserves to the newly created Forest Service , under the Department of Agriculture . Beginning in the early 20th century, the GLO shifted from a primary function of land sales to issuing leases and collecting grazing fees for livestock raised on public lands, and royalties from minerals off lands recently withdrawn from disposal under
242-608: The baseline called the “Geographer’s Line” at 40 degrees 38 minutes north, which runs west from the north bank of the Ohio River where it exits Pennsylvania, at a place now called the Beginning Point of the U.S. Public Land Survey . The townships were not numbered from the baseline, but from south to north beginning with the first partial township in each range formed next to the Ohio River. Thus, townships in adjacent ranges rarely had
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#1732851809678264-592: The BLM's Geographic Coordinates Database (GCDB) program has endeavored to generate coordinate values for each established PLSS corner using the official survey records of the GLO and BLM on a township basis. The GCDB data are available for download by the public in GIS shapefile format from the GeoCommunicator Land Survey Information System website. The GCDB coordinates are also available to the public in
286-961: The First Principal Meridian and South and East of the First Principal Meridian. These lands are south of a narrow strip next to the Michigan border , west of the Firelands and the Congress Lands North of Old Seven Ranges, North of the Greenville Treaty Line and the Virginia Military District , and east of Indiana. Townships are surveyed north and south from the baseline at 41 degrees north, and are designated “Township X N, Range Y E of First Principal Meridian” or “Township X S, Range Y E of First Principal Meridian”. In all five of Ohio’s Congress Lands, townships are divided into 36 one mile square sections . These sections are numbered by
308-672: The Withdrawal Act of 1910, as well as other custodial duties. Thus, beginning around 1900, the GLO gained a focus for conservation of renewable public resources, as well as for their exploitation. On July 16, 1946, the GLO was merged with the United States Grazing Service (established in 1934 under the Taylor Grazing Act ) to become the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), an agency of the Interior Department responsible for administering
330-422: The disposal of public land within a declared land district were handled through its land office by officials designated as registers , who recorded land applications, and receivers , who accepted payments for land and issued receipts. The position of receiver was abolished, July 1, 1925, and the functions devolved upon the register, whose title was changed to "manager" in 1946. The first of 362 district land offices
352-630: The method established May 18, 1796. Section sixteen of each survey township was set aside for support of public schools . Lands that were not dispersed in the United States Military District or the Refugee Tract were made available for sale through the various Land Offices, and treated the same as Congress Lands. 40°21′29″N 80°36′51″W / 40.35806°N 80.61417°W / 40.35806; -80.61417 Survey township A survey township , sometimes called
374-533: The remaining 264,000,000 acres (1,070,000 km ) of public lands still in federal ownership. An early commissioner was John McLean , later an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States . The BLM makes images of GLO records (federal land patents, survey plats and field notes, land status records, and tract books) issued between 1787 and present publicly available on its website. Since 1990,
396-652: The same number. This system extended the original numbering plan from the Seven Ranges . There being no east ranges or south townships, plats are designated “Township X of Range Y of Ohio River Survey” with no need for north or west designations. Surveys on the Ohio River Base also consist of the Ohio Company and the Seven Ranges. The Seven Ranges were sold in the same manner, and could be considered Congress Lands, but get
418-440: The third phase of the survey ( British Columbia , Alberta and most of Saskatchewan), townships are nominally 486 chains (6.08 mi; 9.78 km) east-west and 483 chains (6.04 mi; 9.72 km) north-south. The actual area of a given township differs from the nominal because of systematic effects (due to the design of the survey) and surveying errors. Survey townships are distinct from civil townships . A survey township
440-722: The townships into section (interior) lines. Virtually all lands covered by this system were sold according to those boundaries and are marked on the U.S. Geological Survey topographic maps . Prior to standardization, some of the Ohio Lands (the United States Military District , the Firelands and the Connecticut Western Reserve ) were surveyed into townships of 5 miles (8.0 km) on each side. These are often known as Congressional Townships. Sections are divided into quarter-sections of 160 acres (65 ha) each and quarter-quarter sections of 40 acres (16 ha) each. In
462-707: Was an independent agency of the United States government responsible for public domain lands in the United States. It was created in 1812 to take over functions previously conducted by the United States Department of the Treasury . Starting with the enactment of the Land Ordinance of 1785 , which created the Public Land Survey System , the Treasury Department had already overseen the survey of
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#1732851809678484-603: Was opened at Steubenville, Ohio , on July 2, 1800; the last at Newcastle, Wyoming , on March 1, 1920. The peak year for land offices was 1890, with 123 in operation. The subsequent closing of the public domain gradually reduced the number of land offices, until, in 1933, only 25 offices remained. The GLO was placed under the Secretary of the Interior when the Department of the Interior was formed in 1849. Reacting to public concerns about forest conservation, Congress in 1891 authorized
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