An Act authorizing the grant and conveyance of certain Lands to the Ohio Company of Associates, 1792

Statute I, CHAP. XXV.—An Act authorizing the grant and conveyance of certain Lands to the Ohio Company of Associates.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That a certain contract expressed in an indenture executed on the twenty-seventh day of October, in the year one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven, between the then board of treasury for the United States of America, of the one part, and Manasseh Cutler, and Winthrop Sergeant, as agents for the directors of the Ohio Company of Associates, of the other part, so far as the same respects the following described tract of land; that is to say: "Beginning at a station where the western boundary line of the seventh range of townships, laid out by the authority of the United States in Congress assembled, intersects the river Ohio; thence extending along that river south-westerly to a place where the western boundary line of the fifteenth range of townships, when laid out agreeably to the land ordinance passed the twentieth day of May, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-five, would touch the said river; thence running northerly on the said western bounds of the said fifteenth range of townships, 'till a line drawn due east to the western boundary line of the said seventh range of townships, will comprehend, with the other lines of this tract, seven hundred and fifty thousand acres of land, besides the several lots and parcels of land in the said contract reserved or appropriated to particular purposes; thence running east to the western boundary line of the said seventh range of townships, and thence along the said line to the place of beginning," be and the same is hereby confirmed: And that the President of the United States be and he hereby is-authorized and empowered to issue letters patent in the name and under the seal of the United States, thereby granting and conveying to Rufus Putnam, Manasseh Cutler, Robert Oliver, and Griffin Green, and to their heirs and assigns, in fee simple, the said described tract of land, with the reservations in the said indenture expressed, in trust for the persons composing the said Ohio company of associates, according to their several rights and interests, and for their heirs and assigns, as tenants in common.

SEC. 2. And be it further enacted, That the President be and he hereby is further authorized and empowered, by letters patent as aforesaid, to grant and convey to the said Rufus Putnam, Manasseh Cutler, Robert Oliver and Griffin Green, and to their heirs and assigns, in trust, for the uses above expressed, one other tract of two hundred and fourteen thousand, two hundred and eighty-five acres of land. Provided, That the said Rufus Putnam, Manasseh Cutler, Robert Oliver and Griffin Green, or either of them, shall deliver to the Secretary of the Treasury within six months, warrants which issued for army bounty-rights sufficient for that purpose, according to the provision of a resolve of Congress of the twenty-third day of July, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-seven.

SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the President be and he hereby is further authorized and empowered by letters patent as aforesaid, to grant and convey to the said Rufus Putnam, Manasseh Cutler, Robert Oliver and Griffin Green, and to their heirs and assigns, in fee simple, in trust for the uses above expressed, a farther quantity of one hundred thousand acres of land. Provided always nevertheless, That the said grant of one hundred thousand acres shall be made on the express condition of becoming void, for such part thereof, as the said company shall not have, within five years from the passing of this act, conveyed in fee simple, as a bounty and free of expense, in tracts of one hundred acres, to each male person, not less than eighteen years of age, being an actual settler at the time of such conveyance.

SEC. 4. And be it further enacted, That the said quantities of two hundred and fourteen thousand, two hundred and eighty-five acres, and of one hundred thousand acres, shall be located within the limits of the tract of one million, five hundred thousand acres of land, described in the indenture aforesaid, and adjoining to the tract of land described in the first section of this act, and in such form as the President in the letters patent, shall prescribe for that purpose.

APPROVED, April 21, 1792.

1 Stat. 257