Bounty Land, Bureaucracy and Badly Patronized - War of 1812 Veterans and the Settlement of Defiance County - Part 3

 Bounty Land, Bureaucracy and Badly Patronized - War of 1812 Veterans and the Settlement of Defiance County - Part 3

In 1850, Congress included the War of 1812 Militia in the Bounty Land Program, using a sliding scale based on time of service to award land.  Finally, in 1852, Bounty Land Warrants and the Land itself were made transferable/ saleable.  In 1855, Congress went on to reduce the time of service to just 14 days for which a former soldier could get 160 acres.  If you had not served 14 days, but could prove you traveled at least 1200 miles in any military capacity, you got 160 acres.  Wagon masters, chaplains and other logistical personnel got 160 acres.  And, if along the way, you qualified but had not received a total of 160 acres, you got topped off.   

Lastly, in 1856, Congress brought naval personnel into the program, breathed a sigh of relief that everyone was equal, and patted themselves on the back just in time for an overheated American economy to experience the Panic of 1857, which, by the way, was the first worldwide economic crisis.

FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF AN 1812 SOLDIER

Let's imagine a man born in 1793 who served as a Kentucky private in the War of 1812.  He was a veteran of the campaigning along the Maumee River, withstood the two sieges of Fort Meigs, fought with Harrison at the Battle of the Thames where Tecumseh was killed, went on to complete a five year hitch in the Army and was honorably discharged.

He then came back to Kentucky to farm and raise a family. However, of all the places he had been, he liked the area around Ft. Defiance the best, saw its agricultural possibilities, and would like to have moved there with his young family.  But the 160 acre Bounty Land Warrant he had been given could not be sold or transferred and was only redeemable in Iowa, Missouri or Arkansas.  Those places did not interest him, so he went on about his life.

In 1820, he was glad to hear that the Fort Defiance area was now surveyed as an official part of Ohio.  In 1842, now at the age of 49, he learned that he could redeem his warrant for land around Fort Defiance, but if things did not pan out, he could still not sell the land or he could only pass it on to his heirs.  The risk of this was too great for his family, though he toyed with the idea of relocating.  Once again, he went on with his Kentucky life.

In 1852, at the age of 59, he learned through a fellow veteran that the 160 acres land warrant he held for 33 years (and the land that it might get him) could now be sold to the highest bidder.  His midlife crisis was a trip back to the Fort Defiance area to investigate what land he might acquire. Of course, he found the acreage picked over, and the best he could find was some marginal swampy ground on what would become Domersville Road in Adams Township.  He returned to Kentucky, sold his warrant to a broker for $1.15 an acre ($184 - which truly was a princely amount in that time), and lived out the rest of his life.

Our fictional soldier illustrates the impediments of timing, law, and federal government patronization that stopped Veterans of 1812 from making a bigger contribution to the development of Defiance County.  But in spite of all that conspired against them, there were fifteen veterans of the War of 1812, (out of the 82 military patent grants) who purchased land with their warrants and presumably moved to the county to develop and farm their claims.  God bless them and their progeny.