Knox County was carved from Army lands for Revolutionary War veterans

MOUNT VERNON — One might think I’d be a better mechanic than I am, because I like to discover how things work. The problem is, the things that interest me are people and places, not machines. 

That’s how you end up becoming a history enthusiast instead of a guy who can fix things.

I’ve talked before about noticing the differences as I drive from Newark in Licking County, into Knox County, up through Mount Vernon and Fredericktown, and on into Richland County and Mansfield. 

In terms of the oldest surviving town and rural architecture, you find a gradual transition from southern style to northern style. This happens because the southern parts of the region had a lot of settlers from Virginia. 

Meanwhile, more northern towns in the area were settled by people from mid-Atlantic states like Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.

Northeast Ohio was claimed during the revolutionary war by the colony of Connecticut, as a future place for Connecticut veterans of the Revolutionary War to settle, and became known as the Western Reserve, a name still applied to the distinctive New England architecture that sprang up there as New Englanders traveled up the Great Lakes to pour into Cleveland and other northern ports. 

Part of that region was reserved for Connecticut residents who had lost property during the Revolutionary War to fires, thus giving us the area still known to this day as The Firelands.

If you drive west out of the town of Willard in Huron County on Ohio 224, you’ll pass the historical marker that shows the location of the southwest corner of the Western Reserve.

But the central highlands of Ohio were not part of the Western Reserve, nor were they part of the Congressional Lands later distributed by the early US government, resulting in counties like Crawford, Richland, and Ashland.

Those were lands north of the Greenville Treaty Line that did not officially open up until after 1808, just fourteen years after that treaty promised American Indians of Ohio the land north of that line in the future.

That treaty line marks part of Knox County’s northern border. So, what were the lands south of that line?

According to an act of the Continental Congress (later defined by the US Congress in 1796), those lands were reserved for veterans of the Revolutionary War who stayed with the army and did not go home as soon as their initial enlistment expired. 

In fact, all of Knox County was part of the Army Lands, as they became known, with the exception of a tiny sliver of the northwest corner of the county, in Middlebury Township, that was actually north of the Greenville Treaty Line.

The colony, and later state, of Virginia reserved a chunk of land in southwest Ohio for veterans as well, but many of Virginia’s numerous veterans applied for land grants in the Army Lands, for which they were also eligible.

Many Marylanders, Pennsylvanians, and others applied as well, bringing a diverse mix of people into the forming county. 

Plus, some veterans sold their land warrants to land speculators and other developers, bringing an even wider range of people into the area, far more so than what was seen in the Western Reserve or the Virginia Military District.

It made sense, particularly in Knox County, which straddles the natural geographical border between the foothills of Appalachia and the rolling pastures of western Ohio. 

Unsurprisingly, people who lived in hill country back east preferred the eastern part of Knox County, and those from the flatter piedmont regions preferred the rolling fields of the western end. These are simplifications, but they carry at least a grain of truth.

The land grants for the Army Lands reflected rank, and were offered because the fledgling country didn’t have the cash to pay all the soldiers and officers during the war. Thus the land was long-delayed payment to the vets. 

A top-ranking major general could receive 1100 acres for his bounty, with lesser amounts for lower ranks, down to common soldiers with the rank of private, who were offered 100 acres. 

There was a total of around 2.5 million acres in the district, many of which were claimed by high-ranking officials who then sold off the parcels of land. By 1830, acres of the land were valued at around $1.25 per acre, but often sold for even less. 

Adjusted for inflation, that’s about $36.30 per acre. Oh, how I wish that valuation was still in place!

So, bit by bit, with plenty of wheeling-and-dealing along the way, Knox County took shape on the frontier.

Next week’s column will look more closely at an early farm near Utica that found itself cut in half by the formation of the county, two years after the family had already settled.