In October (1786),
only a month after the cession, the General Assembly of
Connecticut, determined to offer for sale the portion of the
Reserve lying east of the Cuyahoga and Tuscarawas rivers. These
lands were ordered to be surveyed into townships six miles square;
in each township five hundred acres were dedicated for the
support of schools, and the same quantity to the "support of the
Gospel," and two hundred and forty acres in fee simple in every
township were promised to the first minister who should settle in
it. But the survey as intended above was never made, nor was any
sale made except the notable one, in 1788, to General Samuel H.
Parsons, of a section lying in the Mahoning Valley, consisting of
25,000 acres and known as the "Salt-Springs Tract" In 1789, Judge
Parsons was appointed by the State of Connecticut a commissioner
with Governor Oliver Wolcott, and Hon. James Davenport, to hold a
treaty with the Wyandots and other tribes of Indians, for the
purpose of extinguishing their claim, "the aboriginal title to the
lands called the Connecticut Western Reserve," and in the fall of
that year (1789) Parsons visited the country with the purpose of
arranging for the treaty. While returning to his residence, then
in Marietta, he was drowned in descending the rapids of the Big
Beaver.
On May 11, 1792,
the General Assembly quit-claimed to the inhabitants of several
Connecticut towns whose property had been burned by the British in
their incursions into the State during the Revolution, five
hundred thousand acres lying across the Western end of the
Reserve, bounded north by the lake shore, said lands to be divided
among the grantees, the original sufferers of loss or their heirs
or assigns, in proportion to their respective losses as found and
reported by a committee previously appointed by the assembly.
These lands are known in Connecticut history as "The Sufferers'
Lands," in Ohio history as "The Firelands." The total number of
"sufferers," as reported, was 1,87o and the aggregate losses
£161,548, s, 61/2d, something over eight hundred thousand dollars.
In 1796, the sufferers were incorporated in Connecticut, and in
1803 in Ohio, under the title "The Proprietors of the Half-Million
Acres of Land lying south of Lake Erie." The lands were surveyed,
divided into tracts and distributed to the sufferers according to
each one's proportion. The Firelands—now including the counties of
Huron and Erie—were peopled a little later than the eastern part
of the Western Reserve, but as Alfred Mathews states, in his "Ohio
and the Western Reserve," the settlers, when they did come,
emphasized their native homes by giving their new settlements such
Connecticut names as New Haven, East Haven, New London, Norwalk,
Greenwich, Fairfield, Danbury, Ridgefield and Groton.
As the survey
progressed it was estimated that the Western Reserve comprised the
Reserve proper, 2,835,547 acres, Firelands, 500,00o acres,
Salt-Spring Tract, 25,450 acres, Kelley's and the several Bass
Islands, lying in the lake off the western end of the reservation,
5,924 acres, making a total of 3,366,921 acres—an excess over the
area of the state of Connecticut itself of 173,921 acres. In May,
1795, the General Assembly offered the Reserve lands—excepting the
Firelands—for sale, at fixed terms and conditions, appointed
acommittee to negotiate the sale and set apart the proceeds as a
perpetual Connecticut State Fund, the interest of which should be
appropriated to the support of the State public schools.
In September
following the above legislation, as is related by Professor B. A.
Hinsdale in "The Old Northwest," the committee, appointed by the
State for that purpose, sold the lands in bulk, without survey or
measurement, to thirtyfive purchasers, who severally agreed to pay
stipulated sums, which together, would amount to one million two
hundred thousand dollars, the price of tract agreed upon. The
committee made as many deeds as there were purchasers, the term
"purchaser" being used in a legal sense, many of the purchasers
named representing associate or sub-buyers. The deed granted to
the purchaser, in behalf of the State of Connecticut, and to his
heirs forever, all right, title and interest, "juridical, and
territorial," in and to a certain number of twelve
hundred-thousandths of the lands described, to be held by the said
purchaser as tenant in common of said whole tract or territory
with the other purchasers and not in severalty. In accordance
therewith, the number of undivided shares that each purchaser
received was the same as the number of dollars that he had agreed
to pay toward the total purchase-money. The sale was on credit;
the purchasers at the time gave their bonds for the amount of the
several contracts, with personal security, but afterward they gave
mortgages on the lands.
The list of
original purchasers and the amounts agreed to be paid by each is
given by Colonel Charles Whittlesey, in his "Early History of
Cleveland" (1867), and the names show that while most of the
buyers were from Connecticut, some were from Massachusetts and a
few from New York. Oliver Phelps, "perhaps the largest
land-speculator of the time," was at their head. September 5,
1795, the purchasers organized, constituting themselves the
"Connecticut Land Company," which was never incorporated but was
maintained rather as a "syndicate," in which all the members of
the partnership joined in a deed of trust, covering the entire
purchase, to John Caldwell, Jonathan Brace, and John Morgan.
As special
corporate powers were not given the purchasers by the General
Assembly of Connecticut and doubts existed as to the validity of
their political franchises, the trusteeship adopted by the
"syndicate" was necessary for the convenient management of the
business. The State guaranteed nothing either as to title or
quantity of land. She only transferred all the rights she
possessed, as well as those of property under her original
charter; in fact she only gave a quit-claim deed. The members
divided the stock into four hundred shares of $3,000 each. The
land was to be surveyed into townships of five miles square and
seven directors were chosen as follows: Oliver Phelps, Henry
Champion, Moses Cleaveland, Samuel Mather and Roger Newberry.
The annual
meetings of the company were to be held in Hartford, from whence
"New Connecticut" was to be governed as New England had been by
the Plymouth council 'in England. Moses Cleaveland, one of the
directors, was made general agent of the company and Augustus
Porter was chosen principal surveyor. In the spring of 1796, the
directors of the company sent out the first party of surveyors,
numbering in all fifty persons, seven surveyors, a commissary, a
physician, a boatman, employees and other persons who came as
settlers. There appear to have been but two women in the party,
wives of two surveyors. They took with them horses and cattle.
Some members of this party kept diaries of their journeyings,
portions of which journals are set forth by Colonel Whittlesey.
The party assembled at Schenectady and ascended the Mohawk to Fort
Stanwix, whence most of them passed, with the boats and stores
over the portage to Wood Creek, and then down that stream across
Oneida Lake, and down Oswego River to Lake Ontario. Others of the
party made their way by Canandaigua to Buffalo Creek, where,
states the journal of John Holley, one of the assistant surveyors:
"The council fire with the Six Nations was uncovered and Captain
Brant gave General Cleaveland a speech in writing." Next morning,
the 23d of June, there were speeches by Joseph Brant and Red
Jacket, and finally after much discussion, General Cleaveland
agreed to give the Indians $25,000, in money and goods, two beef
cattle and one hundred gallons of whiskey, for the Iroquois claim
to the lands east of the Cuyahoga River.
