Last Updated
Aug 2009
Ohio was the first state to be surveyed by the United States. Its lands in the public domain wre the first sold by the U.S. Treasury (later by the General Land Office). The Land Ordinance of May 20, 1785, was the basis of the Federal land survey system. The Ordinance established the rectangular system of survey. Many very different styles of survey were used in Ohio before adopting the one in use today. The first public lands surveyed in the United States were the "Seven Ranges." This was the only survey done under the Continental Congress. Sometimes it is sometimes difficult to figure out exactly where a particular tract of land lies in Ohio. Here is a list of some of the Ohio Surveys:
Covers all northeastern Ohio. In her deed of cession dated September 13, 1786, Connecticut retained more than 3 million acres. In 1796, Connecticut sold 3 million acres of the reserve to the Connecticut Land Company but the Indian title to the reserve had not been extinguished then. Clear title was not obtained until the Greenville Treaty in 1795 and the Treaty of Fort Industry in 1805. The west end of the reserve included the 500,000 acre "Fire Lands or Sufferers Lands" reserved for residents of several New England towns destroyed by British- set fires during the Revolutionary War. The General Land Office did not maintain these records and therefore none of these records are in this database. Contact the Ohio State Archives in Columbus for more information.
Covers area bounded by the Scioto River, the Ohio River, the Little Miami River, the Ludlow Line, and the Roberts Line in west-central Ohio. Reserved to satisfy Virginia Revolutionary War military warrants. These metes and bounds land descriptions cover more than 6,570 square miles. BLM has 25 volumes of these warrants and none of them are included in this database; the BLM has indexed about half of them; the rest were multi-page documents and will be indexed later. Check the BLM web site for the most up-to-date listing of indexed records. Note that the records do not show much more than names and warrant numbers. The land descriptions are almost impossible to connect to a specific location since most refer to previous metes and bounds surveys in that area. Again, please contact the State Archives for more information.
Covers most of southeastern Ohio. The base line of the survey followed the meanders of the Ohio River from the Pennsylvania-Ohio state line to the mouth of the Scioto River. Townships were numbered northward from the Ohio River, leading to non-standard locations (i.e., in Muskingum County, Township 15 North, Range 14 West, is due west of Township 11 North, Range 13 West). Includes the Ohio Company Purchase and the Donation Tract, for which there are some records; there are no records about the disposition of the French Grant in Scioto County. Contains duplicate townships (Townships 9, 10, and 11 in Range 21). Also confusing because this survey wraps around the U.S. Military District Survey (see below).
Covers most of central Ohio. Established by Act of Congress of June 1, 1796, to satisfy Congressional resolutions to grant bounty lands to Continental officers and soldiers. The Surveyor General divided the U.S. Military into five districts and made the west boundary of the Seven Ranges a meridian line and south boundary of the reserve a base line. Townships were numbered north from the south boundary and west from the Seven Ranges. Townships 1 through 6 west, were the southeast survey district. The remaining townships in Ranges 1 through 4, and Ranges 7 through 12, were in the south middle district; the remaining townships in Ranges 7 through 12, the north middle district; and all the townships west of Range 12 were the western district. Most townships only contain 25 sections instead of 36; some townships were subdivided into four sections containing about 4,000 acres each. Also includes several tracts reserved for the United Brethren; the Salem Tract (present-day Port Washington), the Gnadehutten Tract and the Schoenbrun Tract (present-day New Philadelphia).
Only contains two townships in Summit and Stark Counties, west of Akron and Canton.
Bordering on the Scioto River, north of Range 22 of the Ohio River Survey, runs north from the mouth of the Scioto River at Portsmouth.
Covers the tier of townships in the Ohio River Survey along the southern border of the U.S. Military Survey roughly running from Zanesville west to Columbus. Does not have a separate meridian code. Listed under the Ohio River Survey. Lands were reserved for refugees from Canada in the early 1800's for aiding the colonial cause during the Revolutionary War. Unclaimed lands were generally sold.
Covers area between the Miami and Little Miami Rivers in southwestern Ohio. Unique in that the township and range directions ran counter to all other public land surveys in the United States. The General Land Office did not maintain land records for the Symmes Purchase (Cincinnati area) within this survey.
Covers area south of the Greenville Treaty line, east of the Ohio-Indiana state line and west of the Miami River in southwestern Ohio. Township numbering is somewhat confusing since the base line of the survey, much like the Ohio River Survey, followed the meanders of a river (the Miami).
Covers most of northwestern Ohio except the "Toledo Strip." Not to be confused with the First Principal Meridian lands in Indiana (see Cincinnati Land Office, below). All Indiana records will be uploaded to the INGenWeb Archives.
Covers a four-township survey at the foot of the rapids of the "Miami" (Maumee) River in and around Toledo. Patents for land in Ohio that were purchased in Michigan are included; since the old state line between Michigan and Ohio ran through this survey.
The "Toledo Strip" in far northwestern Ohio was once claimed by Michigan. Led to a serious dispute between Michigan and Ohio until the admission of Michigan to the Union in 1837. In addition, some townsite surveys are included in our records, such as Lower Sandusky, Perrysburg, Croghansville, (present-day Fremont) and GNADENHUTTEN.
Until the 1840's, the land office in Cincinnati issued several thousand patents for land in southeastern Indiana. A rule of thumb for locating these would be to look for the land description(s) on a particular record from the Cincinnati land office and see if it lies either within the Second Principal Meridian (directions North and East for township and range respectively), or within the First Principal Meridian with a township direction of North and a range direction of West. Lands falling within the First Principal Meridian sold at Cincinnati are not to be confused with those within the First Principal Meridian in northwestern Ohio. These were primarily sold by the land offices at Bucyrus, Defiance, Delaware, Lima, Marion, Piqua, Tiffin, Upper Sandusky, and Wapakoneta. The Cincinnati First Principal Meridian lands were all located in southeastern Indiana within a roughly triangular-shaped area bounded by the Ohio River, the Ohio-Indiana state line, and the Greenville Treaty line extending southwest from Fort Recovery to the Ohio River, at the mouth of the Kentucky River.