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PROCEEDINGS OF LAND COMPANIES.

1795.

seventh and eighth ranges, between Mad river and the Little Miami. Three settlements were to be made, one at the mouth of Mad river, one on the Little Miami, in the seventh range, and another on the Mad river.

On the 21st of September, 1795, Daniel C. Cooper started to survey and mark out a road in the purchase, and John Dunlap to run its boundaries, which was done before the 4th of October. Upon the 4th of November, Mr. Ludlow laid off the town of Dayton, which was disposed of by lottery.

From 1790 to 1795, the Governor and Judges of the North-West Territory published sixty-four statutes. Thirty-four of these were adopted at Cincinnati, during June, July and August of the last named year, and were intended to form a pretty complete body of statutory provisions; they are known as the Maxwell Code, from the name of the publisher, but were passed by Governor St. Clair and Judges Symmes and Turner.

Among them was that which provided that the common law of England, and all statutes in aid thereof, made previous to the fourth year of James I, should be in full force within the territory.

Of the system, as a whole, Mr. Chase says that, with many imperfections, "it may be doubted whether any colony, at so early a period after its first establishment, ever had one so good."

Just after the conclusion of Wayne's treaty, a speculation in Michigan, of the most gigantic kind, was undertaken by certain astute New Englanders, named Robert Randall, Charles Whitney, Israel Jones, Ebenezer Allen, &c., who, in connection with various persons in and about Detroit, proposed to buy of the Indians eighteen or twenty million acres, lying on Lakes Erie, Huron and Michigan, the pre-emption right of which they hoped to obtain from the United States, by giving members of Congress an interest in the investment.

Some of the members who were approached, however, revealed the plan, and Randall, the principal conspirator, having been rep rimanded, the whole speculation disappeared.

Another enterprise, equally gigantic, but far less objectionable, dates from the 20th of February, 1795, to wit, the North American Land Company, which was formed in Philadelphia, under the management of Robert Morris, John Nicholson and James Greenleaf. This company owned vast tracts in various States, which, under an agreement bearing date as above, were offered to the public.

PERIOD VI.

1796-1811.

BEFORE the close of the year 1795, the Union had safely passed through the first great crisis in its history. At its formation it was embarrassed with debt; it was embroiled in difficulties with England, Spain and France; its first years were occupied in prosecuting a harassing war with the Indian tribes, and in quelling the spirit of insubordination to its authority among its own citizens. But these difficulties were now overcome by the wisdom and prudence of the first chief Executive, and by the devotion and fidelity of the men to whom the administration of the new government was committed; and all the questions at issue with foreign powers, and all the embarrassments that threatened the safety of the country at home, were met and settled by them in a way that neither compromised the national honor, nor sacrificed the national interest.

The new government inherited from the confederation a difficulty with Great Britain, which in the end threatened to involve the two nations in another war, and to dismember the North-West from the Union, by the means of a protectorate over the Indian tribes; but the vigor and prudence of the government secured a treaty by which all its rights were maintained, and the integrity of its territory guaranteed. It inherited a difficulty with Spain, which that power sought, through the venality of their politicians, to separate the territories of the South-West from the Union, and to extend its power to the Alleghenies; but the schemes of the conspirators against the integrity of their country were disconcerted, and Spain was compelled to surrender the control of the Mississippi, through which only they and she hoped for the realization of the objects of their tortuous policy. It encountered and defeated the attempt of the agents of the French Republic to seduce the people of the country into opposition to their government, to ally themselves with the radical republicans of France, and to plunge the nation into the vortex of the European war. It was called to meet the combined hostility of all the tribes of the North-West, and it succeeded, after great expenditures and great sacrifices, in destroying their power,

and in extending the authority of the nation over them and their country. It was met with great opposition in all its measures by the disaffected portion of its own citizens-an opposition so bitter as to break out in open insurrection against the execution of its laws-but it overcame that opposition, and quelled that revolt, without the shedding of blood, or without such exercise of its authority as would alienate and embitter any portion of the people.

While the administration of Washington was thus successful in averting the dangers that beset the new government, at home and abroad, the beneficial effects of its policy were especially felt in the West. The successful close of the Indian war, and the treaty of Greenville especially, were hailed with joy everywhere along the frontier. All the population of the West had participated in the dangers and privations of the war, and they were all now ready to enjoy the quiet and security of the peace. The great and fertile region north-west of the Ohio was now open to the enterprise of the pioneer population of the West; the danger of Indian hostility was at an end; and an emigration began immediately to find its way to the valleys of the Miamies, the Scioto, and the Muskingum, so considerable that the population of the North-West, before the close of the year 1796, was estimated at five thousand.

Western Pennsylvania, too, experienced the beneficial results of the cessation of hostilities with the Indians, and the suppression of the insubordinate spirit of a portion of its people. Settlers began to come from the cast to extend its settlements, and to fill up its towns. The region east and south of the Ohio and Allegheny began at once to receive a large accession of population, and, it is said, at the close of the year 1795, Pittsburgh contained a popula tion of fourteen hundred souls.

The region north and west of the Allegheny and the Ohio was, at the close of the Indian war, mainly a wilderness, with here and there only an isolated settlement or a solitary cabin. Several small forts and block houses were built in that region through the period of the Revolutionary and Indian wars.

A fort was built on the site of the old village of Kittanning, known also by the name of Appleby's fort, by the government, in

1776.

In 1791, Captain Orr built a block house near the site of Tarentum, on the west side of the Allegheny river.

In 1787, a fort named Franklin was built near the mouth of French creek, about a mile above the site of the old French fort,

Venango, by a detachment of United States troops from Fort Pitt, under the command of Captain Hart.

In 1794, a block house was built near the site of the old French fort, Le Bœuf, by Major Denny, then in command of an expedition to Presqu' Isle, as the means of cutting off the communication of the Six Nations with the Western Indians.

With the same object, in 1795, under the direction of General Irvine, two block houses were built at Presqu' Isle, and a small garrison was maintained there for a time for the protection of the surveyors engaged in ascertaining and locating the donation lands in that region of the State.

Around these points, and at others along the Allegheny, hardy and adventurous settlers had gathered as early as 1790, and, after the passage of the land law of 1792, many settlers passed over into that region, but the continuance of Indian hostilities drove the greater number of them from their claims. And it was from this circumstance, combined with the unwise and injudicious legislation of the State at that period, that those difficulties arose in regard to the titles to the lands in North-Western Pennsylvania, that so long impeded, and still to a limited extent affects its prosperity.

It may be proper here, then, to make reference to the land laws of North-Western Pennsylvania, and the influence they exerted on the settlement of that region.*

The title to all the lands within the limits of Pennsylvania was vested in William Penn, and his heirs, by the terms of the royal charter of Charles II, on the 4th of March, 1681. The title conveyed in that charter, however, to Penn, did not justify him in disregarding the prior rights of the aboriginal inhabitants, and, in a spirit of justice that contrasts nobly with the policy pursued by his contemporaries, "he established a rule in his province that no lands should be occupied by his people, until they were first purchased from the Indians." In accordance with this wise and just policy, between the years 1682 and 1736, twenty different purchases, of greater or less extent, were made, by the proprietor or his successors, of the Indian lands east of the mountains, on terms which were regarded as mutually satisfactory.

In 1737, a release to the proprietaries was signed by certain Delaware chiefs, on the basis of a deed said to have been made in 1686, for certain lands, a part of the boundaries of which was de

* In relation to this subject see Smith's Laws of Pennsylvania, vol. ii. p. 105, Note.

scribed as "extending westward to Neshamony creek, from which said line doth extend itself back into the woods, as far as a man can go in a day and a half." The walk was performed, and extended, it is said, about thirty miles beyond the Lehigh hills, and over the Kittatinny mountains. The Indians were greatly dissatisfied with the extent of the purchase as thus measured, complained that the white men ran instead of walking, that they intended the line should have been measured up the creek, by its several courses, and thus the "Walking Purchase," as it was called, became one of the chief grievances that alienated the feelings of the Delawares, and induced them to join the French in the

war of 1754.

In 1749, the chiefs of the Six Nations, the Delawares and the Shawancse signed another deed, confirming the sale previously made, of the lands east of the Susquehanna, as far up that river to the mouth of Cantaguy creek, and bounded on the north by a line drawn from thence to the Delaware at the mouth of Lechawachsein creek, and thence down that river to Kittatinny hills.

At the treaty of Albany, in 1754, the chiefs of the Six Nations made to the proprietaries a deed, conveying their title to all the lands bounded by a line drawn "from the Kittatinny hills, up the Susquehanna river, to a point one mile above the mouth of Kayarondinhagh creek, thence north-west and by west as far as the said province of Pennsylvania extends, to its western boundary; thence along the said western line to the south line or boundary of the said province; thence by the said line or boundary to the south side of the said Kittatinny hills, and thence along the south side of said hills to the place of beginning." This purchase included nearly the whole of the Indian lands in Pennsylvania: it was made without regard to the rights of the other tribes, and in consequence it became the immediate occasion for the Indian war of that period. In order, therefore, to allay their hostility, on the representations of the home government, the proprietaries released to them in 1758, all the lands included within the purchase, west of a line drawn along the east side of the Allegheny mountains.

The last purchase of the proprietaries was made at Fort Stanwix, in 1768. It comprehended all the lands included within "a line drawn from Owegy, on the east branch of the Susquehanna, thence to Towanda, thence up the same and across to the head of Pine creek, and down the same to Kittanning, and from Kittanning down the Allegheny and Ohio rivers to the south line of the province, and thence by the said line to the Allegheny mountains, and

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