implementation of policy at the state level. During the period 1836-60 Ohio's state government disposed of approximately 400,000 acres of land, which was all that remained of 1.2 million acres granted to the state by Congress in 1827-28 to aid in financing state canal construction. The original congressional grants to Ohio had consisted of a 500,000-acre “floating" grant in 1828, under which the state had been given discretion in selecting unsold acreage within its borders; and an "alternate-section" grant, also made in 1828, consisting of alternate 640-acre sections within a strip of land five sections wide on each side of the projected Miami Extension Canal, from Dayton northward to the junction with the planned Wabash and Erie Canal west of Toledo. This latter grant, called the Miami Canal grant, eventually gave the state some 438,000 acres; but alternate sections within the five-mile strip were retained by the federal government and priced at double the normal minimum government price, or $2.50 per acre, subject initially to auction sale at higher prices. Finally, in 1834, Ohio received by cession from the state of Indiana a similar "alternate-section" grant along the line of the Wabash and Erie Canal (planned to extend from the Indiana-Ohio border to Toledo on Lake Erie) insofar as the canal ran through Ohio territory. Under the Wabash and Erie grant, Ohio eventually obtained 292,224 acres; again, the federal government retained alternate sections within the five-mile strip for sale at a minimum price of $2.50 per acre. Ohio's selection of lands under the floating grant was concentrated in twenty-two counties in the northwestern quarter of the state-the same region in which the Miami Canal and the Wabash and Erie grants were situated.3

3 Scheiber, "State Policy and the Public Domain: The Ohio Canal Lands," Journal of Economic History 25 (Mar. 1965): 86-113. See also John B. Rae, "Federal Land Grants in Aid of Canals," ibid. 4 (Nov. 1944): 168-170. The checkerboard pattern of ownership, with state sections alternating with those retained by the federal government, as mandated by the terms of the formal grants, did not in fact obtain strictly. This was so because Congress authorized Ohio to select Wabash and Erie "lieu" lands, to an amount equal to the acreage of lands already sold, from among the alternate sections to which it was entitled. The state selected much of the lieuland acreage from the federal $2.50 reserved sections, as it had been authorized to do by a congressional act of June 30, 1834 (4 Statutes at Large 716). The legislative history is summarized in a letter from Gov. Robert Lucas to the commissioner of the GLO, Sept. 12, 1836, in the records of the Wabash and Erie Canal grant, box 91, division "F," Records of

By late 1836 the state had sold off many of the best lands in the northwestern quarter of the state. These most desirable lands were the tracts located close to the Miami Canal or the Wabash and Erie Canal, tracts situated on major streams, and parcels of land particularly well endowed with timber or fertile soil. The state had obtained only limited revenue from these pre-1837 sales, having adopted a policy that encouraged rapid disposition at low minimum prices without legal barriers to speculation. But in the last months of 1836 the Ohio legislature was shaken by reports of corruption at the state land offices. There were angry charges that speculators had bought valuable lands at bargain prices in "manipulated" auctions under conditions that discouraged potential settlers from attending. From settlers in the sparsely populated northwestern district of Ohio came bitter complaints of an emergent "land monopoly." Consequently the legislature ordered a halt to sales pending a full investigation, thus obtaining time to reconsider the state land policy.5

Throughout 1837 sales remained suspended. Meanwhile the spring months brought a financial panic which kicked the bottom out of the western land market. From 1837 until 1842, when depression conditions began to ease, the state was potentially in a position to recast all the basic features of its land law and adopt a policy better geared to achieve specific goals. The subsequent history of the Ohio canal lands, however, was one of persistent failure to achieve a satisfactory level of administrative integrity - or of coherent pursuit of state policy aims.7

The legislature's first move toward reform of its land policy came in 1838 when the general assembly enacted a comprehensive land law. It

the Bureau of Land Management, Record Group 49, National Archives (hereafter cited as Wabash-Erie records).

4 Scheiber, "State Policy," pp. 89-104. The Miami Canal lands comprised alternate (even-numbered) sections on the route of a canal from Dayton to Defiance. The Wabash and Erie lands were the alternate (odd-numbered) sections on a canal route from the Indiana state border eastward, through Defiance, down the Maumee Valley to Lake Erie at presentday Toledo.

5 Laws of Ohio: Local 34 (1836): 640.

6 A further shock was given the land market in July with the issue of President Jackson's famous "Specie Circular."

7 For a broader perspective on the quality of early state administration in Ohio, see Scheiber, Ohio Canal Era: A Case Study of Government and the Economy, 1820-1861 (Athens, Ohio, 1969).

was different in some basic respects from earlier policy. Instead of continuing sales at the pre1837 low minimum prices ($1.25 per acre for the Miami Canal lands and $2.50 per acre for Wabash and Erie lands), the legislature now ordered a parcel-by-parcel appraisal of all lands by state officers.8 Once appraisals were completed, lands would be opened for sale at the appraised price or $3.00 per acre, whichever was higher. The new legislation also contained provisions designed to correct administrative abuses by corrupt land officers. First, all state officials involved in land administration were barred from purchasing any of the lands. Second, all sales were to be made at public auction, with the $3.00 minimum to govern sales; and land officials were authorized to stop sales whenever evidence appeared of collusion among bidders. Third, auction sales were to be held on at least two months' notice, a vitally important provision since many potential settlers had not been given sufficient time to raise funds and travel to auction sites during the sales of 1828-36. In short, the law sought to curb the machinations of insiders who had successfully manipulated the earlier state auctions in their favor and managed to obtain a large proportion of the state lands sold.9

The crucial provision, however, was the $3.00 minimum price. In the market conditions that prevailed in 1838, this effectively prevented any sales whatever.10 As a consequence, no auctions were held from 1838 to 1841. This pleased neither the aggrieved settlers in northwestern Ohio, where the lands were concentrated and where new emigration had nearly come to a halt, nor the speculators who alone under

Although Ohio officials had access to federal surveyors' tract books, which contained data on soil quality, presence of timber, and other features of each parcel, they had never appraised the land grants of the federal government. Prior to 1837, Ohio land was sold by the state at auctions (the statutory minimum price being in effect) and then opened to private entry at the minimum. The model was federal land law. 9 Act of Mar. 19, 1838 (Laws of Ohio 36: 85); see also Columbus (Ohio) Journal and Register, Feb. 26, 1838.

10 The canal lands remaining unsold included many that were deemed "entire swamp" by the appraisers, who rated their market value at $1.25 to $2.00 per acre. "They can never be rendered inhabitable," the appraisers said of extensive tracts in Van Wert and Paulding Counties, "but by an extensive system of draining, which we believe at present, would be too expensive for individual enterprisers." Near the northern end of the Miami Canal they found that "nearly all the dry land had been sold." Report on the Valuation of the State Canal Lands . . . December 17, 1838 (Columbus, 1838), PP. 64-65.

depression conditions had sufficient capital resources to purchase more land. There was an attempt in the legislature in 1839 to accommodate the settlers by extending state credit to them. But the committee assigned to consider the proposal reported it unfavorably, on grounds that costs of collection might easily exceed actual revenues when credit was extended. Besides, the committee believed it was unlikely that the settlers would resist reselling land to the aggressive speculators who had already engrossed "a large portion of the lands lying on and near the [Miami] canal." "Is it not then more probable, in times like these," the committee asked, "that the lands will fall into the same, or similar, hands and the population of the country be rather retarded than increased?" The bill was then defeated.11

Not until 1842 did the legislature again reconsider its policy to permit resumption of land sales. Unable to gain concessions from the general assembly, the people of northwestern Ohio, speculators and settlers alike, looked to the federal government for relief. This was a plausible course of action, since the United States had reserved lands in alternate sections on each side of the Miami Extension and Wabash and Erie Canals, then under construction in western Ohio, under terms of the original congressional land grants to the state. The federal reserved sections had been held out of market since 1828. The U. S. General Land Office was awaiting completion of canal construction, an event expected to enhance the reserved lands' price even beyond the $2.50 per acre minimum that Congress had established for these tracts. 12 A judge in northwestern Ohio wrote of the resultant "difficulties and privations" suffered by the residents of sparsely settled northwestern Ohio:

Settlers in these counties [complain that] their improvements are much retarded, their taxes and public duties much increased, their towns discouraged, and their general prosperity much impeded. . . . The whole Northwestern part of this State is seriously injured by the condition of the public lands. 13

...

11 Ohio General Assembly, House Journal (1838-39), pp.

152-154.

12 Scheiber, "State Policy," pp. 89-90.

13 William L. Helfenstein to James Whitcomb, commissioner of the GLO, Aug. 29, 1838, in the dossier of correspondence and land schedules pertaining to the Miami Canal, Ohio, Record Group 49, National Archives (hereafter cited as Miami Canal dossier).

Similarly, a group of settlers who had located themselves on the lower Auglaize River, near the projected Miami Extension Canal, asserted bitterly that this canal "presents an anomaly in the history of this or any other country; the line of which [sic] is laid for about 80 miles, without touching upon one solitary improved farm." They demanded immediate sale of the federal reserved tracts.14

The federal government, however, could not respond favorably to such petitioners until it settled an outstanding dispute with the state of Ohio. At issue was the General Land Office's interpretation of the Wabash and Erie land grant. The Office had taken a narrow view of Congress's intent to cede to Ohio "alternate sections" lying within five miles of the canal line, deeming that this pertained only to full sections of 640 acres and not to partial sections; the state claimed that this ruling had deprived it of over 50,000 acres of land. 15 The General Land Office also discovered in 1839 that nearly 28,000 acres of the reserved lands which it did acknowledge as belonging to Ohio, and which had been withdrawn from entry in 1828, had been sold illegally since that time to a small group of insiders, including Gov. Wilson Shannon! These matters were settled in 1840. The Office disallowed the illegal sales and ceded the lands in question to the state. 16 The matter of the disputed "partial sections" was meanwhile referred to the U.S. Attorney General, who ruled in Ohio's favor. By late 1840, therefore, the way was open to selling the reserved tracts in western Ohio. 17

14 Memorial, Dec. 1, 1837, from "A Number of Citizens of Ohio," 25 Cong., 2 sess., Senate Documents, vol. 1, no. 52. A resolution of the Ohio legislature declared that settlers in northwestern Ohio were "compelled to pay heavy amounts of taxes to support the state, county, township and school governments over the territory thus reserved from purchase, as well as endure all the hardships and privations occasioned by the non-improvement and [non]settlement of those lands." Resolution (MS), Jan. 17, 1840, Wabash-Erie records. 15 Message of the Governor in Relation to the Wabash and Erie and Other Canal Lands, February 5, 1838 (Columbus, 1838), pp. 1-5. See also P. G. Goode to GLO, Jan. 17, 1838, and reply, Jan. 29, 1838, Miami Canal dossier. The letters reveal that the GLO further interpreted the congressional landgrant statutes as preventing any sale of the reserved lands until Ohio had made final selection of all the land to which it was entitled; even by this narrow interpretation Ohio was still owed some 2,500 acres.

18 P. G. Goode to GLO, Jan. 1, 1840, Wabash-Erie records; Thomas Van Horne to James Whitcomb, Apr. 3, 1840, Whitcomb to Goode, Aug. 19, 1840, Whitcomb to register at Lima, Dec. 14, 1840, Miami Canal dossier.

17 Title to 41,600 acres was ceded to the state under the