Bounty Land, Bureaucracy and Badly Patronized - War of 1812 Veterans and the Settlement of Defiance County - Part 2

 Bounty Land, Bureaucracy and Badly Patronized - War of 1812 Veterans and the Settlement of Defiance County - Part 2

REALITY -

There were only 82 Military Bounty Land Warrant Patents awarded in Defiance County, totalling 5,283 acres.  When two "yahoos" in Washington Township were caught cheating and each had their 160 acre parcels revoked, the adjusted total was 4,963 acres - representing a little under 2% of the county acreage.  Hardly the economic catalyst I theorized.

Interestingly, all 80 county patents were purchased from the government in the years 1851 - 1854 (an important clue I will explain subsequently).  In every case of the 1851 patents, the purchaser of the land was the warrant holder.  Thereafter, the purchaser differed from the warrant holder most of the time.

In distribution by township, Mark (1,592 acres) had the most patent grants, followed by Richland (1,126 acres) and Adams (880 acres).  I believe this to be a reflection of the relative development of these townships in the 1850s - the wilder, wetter and woolier the land, the more it remained unclaimed and available for military bounty awards in mid-century.

The Timeline -

Northwest Ohio, including Defiance County, was technically Native American land until the Treaty at the Foot of the Rapids was signed in 1817.  At the time, the United States took possession of Northwest Ohio and the native population was resettled on reservations sprinkled around the area.  Surveying the newly acquired land was completed in 1820.  Meanwhile, the wheels of progress and government largesse continued to turn.

Veterans of the War of 1812, and later their widows and heirs, could apply for bounty land under various government acts passed during and immediately after the war.  Seasoned veterans were entitled to quarter sections of land (160 acres); a few got half sections (320 acres).  But, there were two big catches to the giveaway:

 

1. The land was ONLY available in Illinois, Missouri, and Arkansas.

2. The bounty warrants, as well as the land itself, were not transferable.  This meant that if you exercised your bounty warrant and bought the land at $1.25 an acre, you and your progeny had better intend to develop/ farm it because your family was stuck with it in perpetuity.

Steps to Redress -

Originally a large swath of Western Michigan not far north of Defiance County was slated for War of 1812 bounty lands.  However when it came time for Congress to decide what lands qualified, a few key politicians (apparently, Lewis Cass) wanted to protect their speculative interests and floated false rumors about the unsuitability of the land in that part of the territory.  Obliging its own, Congress did not include Michigan in the bounty lands, but instead substituted Missouri for use by 1812 veterans.  At any rate and better late than never, Congress, 30 years on (1842) opened up all land that was owned by the Federal Government for use by  bounty warrant land holders.

The galling point though, for 1812 veterans, which would become the focus of their political efforts in the next 40 years, was the inability to sell either the bounty warrants themselves or the land which they entitled a veteran to purchase.  One generation before, the ability to do both had been given to Revolutionary War veterans.  When, in consequence, there suddenly appeared money grubbing bounty warrant brokers all over the nation, Congress surely thought it had unwittingly let the "money changers into the temple.  When it came time to reprise their efforts for the veterans of 1812, they "corrected their mistake" and eliminated the transferablity of both bounty land warrants and the land itself.

What is NOT a surprise is that, like nothing else before, the Ten Regiments Act spurred 1812 veterans to organize as what we would recognize today as an effective lobbying group. (The Ten Regiments Act, passed in 1847, gave Mexican War veterans more generous terms for bounty land warrants.)  It took Washington another eight years to rectify the inequalities.  But by  1856, Congress was acting the part of a "guilty grandparent at Christmas," using both hands to ladle out perquisites to former soldiers...

To be continued in Part 3