Seven Ranges

It consists of all of Monroe, Harrison, Belmont and Jefferson, and portions of Carroll, Columbiana, Tuscarawas, Guernsey, Noble, and Washington County.

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.

The Geographer of the United States, Thomas Hutchins, was to make a return of the survey after each seven ranges had been completed, at which time the Secretary of War was to choose by lot one seventh of the land to compensate veterans of the Continental army.

He arrived in Pittsburgh on September 3, and wrote a letter to the President of Congress noting that the requirement of the act for equal square townships could not be strictly met on a nearly spherical planet.

In June 1787, Hutchins asked a leave of absence that was granted, and the surveyors of the previous year continued the survey.

[7] The original survey set stones at one mile (1.6 km) intervals along the four sides of each township, and did not venture to the interior.

The Steubenville Land Office was responsible for sales in the northern part of the tract, within 48 miles (77 km) of the Geographer's Line.

Knepper notes: "Sections number 8, 11, 26, and 29 in every township were reserved for future sale by the federal government when, it was hoped, they would bring higher prices because of developed land around them.

Congress also reserved one third part of all gold, silver, lead, and copper mines to its own use, a bit of wishful thinking as regards Ohio lands.

"[2] Arnold Henry Dohrman helped the American cause in the revolutionary war at great expense while living in Portugal.