Acquired by Great Britain from France following the 1763 Treaty of Paris, the Ohio Country had been closed to white settlement by the Proclamation of 1763.
The United States claimed the region after the 1783 Treaty of Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War.
The Geographer's Line was to extend westward through “the whole territory” which at that time was meant to include lands lying between the Ohio River and Lake Erie.
An un-surveyed tract of land in eastern Ohio remained north of the Seven Ranges and Military District, and south of the Connecticut Western Reserve.
In that gap, extending westward from the Pennsylvania line to the Tuscarawas River, lands were surveyed circa 1801 under the Act of May 18, 1796.
[7] The Treaty of Greenville[8] in 1795 had established land west of the Tuscarawas as reserved for Indians, and not open to American settlement.
The Tract today includes all or part of these counties in Ohio: Ashland, Carroll, Columbiana, Crawford, Holmes, Knox, Mahoning, Morrow, Richland, Stark, Summit, and Wayne.