HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY

CHAPTER VI.

SURVEYORS.---REFUGEE LANDS.

Very soon after the treaty of Greenville, the general government directed the survey of the public lands lying within the bounds of the territory now composing the counties along the Hocking valley, with the view no doubt of bringing it into an early market, by which immigra- tion and settlement of the county would receive early attention. The surface of the present Fairfield county was among the first to be sectioned off. It was laid out in full sections, first, of six hundred and forty acres, and subsequently subdivided into half and quarter sections, for the convenience, of purchasers, and for the greater encouragement of a rapid settlement of the county. The section lines were, without any exceptions, run to correspond with the four cardinal points of the compass, for the better convenience of forming townships and ranges, each full section being of the dimension of one mile square. Thus the townships of Fairfield county, in conformity to the original surveys, have their border lines due north and south, and east and west. The average township of the county is a six mile square of thirty-six sections. The variations from this dimension are shown elsewhere; but all maintaining the same lineal direction. This is within the bounds of the present limit of the county. All the surveys remain precisely as first made. There are, however, great inconveniences constantly arising in regard to bounds, and corners and lines, owing to the lack of carefully prepared and preserved plattings and permanent corner stones. Scarcely a piece of land of any dimension can be, or ever is transferred, without the employment of a surveyor, whose principle business seems to be to find the original bounds. After all, with the best that be done, frequent misunderstandings and litigations arise. The original field notes and plats of each respective surveyor, being private property, have been laid aside, and are probably mostly lost. The sections and city lots are marked by lines on the maps and plats, but each man's farm, or corners, are not. If there are corner stones, they are sometimes hard to find. The same difficulties frequently arise in trying to find just where one man's city lot stops and his neighbors begins. It is often set up, that somebody's wall or fence is a few inches or feet over on somebody else. These are difficulties that it would seem should not exist. It would seem that the surface of terra firma should be so well platted and marked, that the only business of the surveyor would be to measure off portions of the land, sold, or to be transferred. The names of all the original surveyors of land now within Fairfield cannot be ascertained. They did their work, the fruits of which are found on the maps, perfect or imperfect, as the case may be. Beyond what is etched and printed, all else they did is lost. Others follow them to find, or try to find, how near they were right. Quite a number 29

of law suits have arisen in Lancaster upon disputed lines, sometimes involving individuals, and sometimes the city in expense more or less onerous. A suit about an original line occurred three or four years since between the city and the Cox heirs, that was attended with consid- erable expense on both sides, and in which the city lost the case. It grew out of a difficulty as to where the original line of Zane's section was. Another litigation has been going on, and not yet settled, between the heirs of S. McCabe and Christ Rudolph, about one or two feet on the dividing line between their adjoining lots. In this case sev- eral times the value of the disputed ground has been paid in costs and attorney's fees, besides getting up a family war, of which the end is not yet. It is a matter of considerable doubt to-day, whether any surveyor could find the original lines of Zane's section of one mile square, on which the city of Lancaster stands, for they did not quite correspond with the subsequent sectioning, nor with the township lines. Among those known to have been engaged in the government surveys, at the beginning of the settlements, were James Dunlap, Elnathan Schofield and Samuel H. Smith. There were also others in the service; but these were perhaps the principal surveyors. Mr. Schofield did a large amount of the work, probably more than any one man in the field. He surveyed the lands as far down Hocking as below the falls, at Logan, but especially in the east part of the county. The titles to all lots of ground on Zane's section, which make up the body of the city of Lancaster, are entirely secure, and are liable to no greater difficulties regarding bounds than are any city lots elsewhere. But on the outskirts, where lots border, or are supposed and claimed to border, on the original line of the Zane section, difficulties are likely to occur, and have already occurred. The Cox heirs vs. the city of Lancaster, before referred to, is a case in point, because on the line. A number of surveyors were called to settle the dispute, by fixing the original line, one, from an adjoining county. It may be so in the other cases. The line is lost; and the oldest citizens differ materially and widely as to where it originally was. The chief difficulty is that the location does not correspond with the established sections. REFUGEE LANDS.---The history of what is known as the Refugee lands is somewhat confused. Historians have described it variously as to its extent and number of acres. In some statements its length from west to east has been given at eighteen miles, while others make it double that, and more. In one statement the length was given at sixty miles. Without attempting to reconcile these discrepancies, it may be stated, generally, that the tract is supposed to have contained one hundred thousand acres, and that it was a narrow strip of four and a half miles in width, and extended from the Scioto River, east, in a due line. Upon the hypothesis that the tract contained one hundred thousand acres, that would give it an eastern extension of near fifty miles, if its width was four and a half miles, which is probably nearly correct. Two miles of this strip belongs to Fairfield county, running along the northern margins of Violet, Liberty and Walnut townships. The other portion of it, of the width of two and a half miles, lies over the line within the county of Licking, corresponding with the width of Fairfield. 30

The history of this tract of land is as follows: During the Revolu- tionary war, there were certain men of Canada and Nova Scotia, who sympathized with, and rendered aid to the United States, some of them joining the American Army. For this lack of loyalty to the crown of Great Britain, that government confiscated their possessions. For their co-operation with the colonists, in their struggle for independence, the government of the United States caused this strip of land to be surveyed and set apart for this use. To what extent they entered upon it, is not known; but the remainder was subsequently sectioned off and sold as Congress land. 31