§ 2. Settlement of the Public Domain.

population.

The westward movement of population in the United States has for the most part followed the parallels of latitude. Thus Virginians and North Carolinians, crossing the Alleghanies, settled Kentucky and Tennessee; thus people from New England filled up the central and northern parts of New York, and Westward passed on into Michigan and Wisconsin; movement of thus Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois received many settlers from New York and Pennsylvania. In the early times when Kentucky was settled, the pioneer would select a piece of land wherever he liked, and after having a rude survey made, and the limits marked by "blazing " the trees with a hatchet, the survey would be put on record in the state land-office. So little care was taken that "half a dozen patents would sometimes be given for the same tract. Pieces of land, of all shapes and sizes, lay between the patents. Such a system naturally begat no end of litigation, and there remain in Kentucky curious vestiges of it" to this day.1

...

In order to avoid such confusion in the settlement of the territory north of the Ohio river, Congress passed the land-ordinance of 1785, which was based chiefly upon the suggestions of Thomas Jefferson, and laid the foundation of our simple and excellent system for surveying national lands. According to this system as gradually perfected, the government surveyors first mark out a north and south line which is called the principal meridian. Twenty- Method of four such meridians have been established. surveying The first was the dividing line between Ohio lands. and Indiana; the last one runs through Oregon a lit

1 Hinsdale, Old Northwest, p. 261.

the public

tle to the west of Portland. On each side of the prin cipal meridian there are marked off subordinate meridians called range lines, six miles apart, and numbered east and west from their principal. Then a true parallel of latitude is drawn, crossing these meridians at right angles. It is called the base line, or standard parallel. Eleven such base lines, for example, run across the great state of Oregon. Finally, on each side of the base line are drawn subordinate parallels called township lines, six miles apart, and numbered north and south from their base line. By

1 The following is a diagram of the first principal meridian, and of the base line running across southern Michigan. A B is the principal meridian; C D is the base line. The figures on the base line mark the range lines; the figures on the principal meridian mark the township lines. E is township 4 north in range 5 east; F is township 5 south in range 4 west; G is township 3 north in range 3 west.

As the intervals between meridians diminish as we go north

townships,

these range lines and township lines the whole land is thus divided into townships just six miles. Origin of square, and the townships are all numbered. Western Take, for example, the township of Deerfield in Michigan. That is the fourth township north of the base line, and it is in the fifth range east of the first principal meridian. It would be called township number 4 north range 5 east, and was so called before it was settled and received a name. Evidently one must go 24 miles from the principal meridian, or 18 miles from the base line, in order to enter this township. It is all as simple as the numbering of streets in Philadelphia.1

ward, it is sometimes necessary to introduce a correction line, the nature of which will be seen from the following diagram:

Correction Line..

Meridian Line.

Base Line.

DIAGRAM OF CORRECTION LINE.

1 In Philadelphia the streets for the most part cross each other at right angles and at equal distances, so that the city is laid out like a checkerboard. The parallel streets running in one direction have names, often taken from trees. Market Street is the

If now we look at Livingston County, in which this township of Deerfield is situated, we observe that the county is made up of sixteen townships, in four rows of four; and the next county, Washtenaw, is made up of twenty townships, in five rows of four. Maps of our Western states are thus apt to have somewhat of and of West- a checkerboard aspect, not unlike the wonern counties. derful country which Alice visited after she had gone through the looking-glass. Square townships are apt to make square or rectangular counties, and the state, too, is likely to acquire a more symmetrical shape.

central street from which the others are reckoned in both directions according to the couplet

"Market, Arch, Race, and Vine,

Chestnut, Walnut, Spruce, and Pine," etc.

The cross streets are not named but numbered, as First, Second, etc. The houses on one side of the street have odd numbers and on the other side even numbers, as is the general custom in the United States. With each new block a new century of numbers begins, although there are seldom more than forty real numbers in a block. For example, the corner house on Market Street, just above Fifteenth, is 1501 Market Street. At somewhere about 1535 or 1539 you come to Sixteenth Street; then there is a break in the numbering, and the next corner house is 1601. So in going along a numbered street, say Fifteenth, from Market, the first number will be 1; after passing Arch, 101; after passing Race, 201, etc. With this system a very slight familiarity with the city enables one to find his way to any house, and to estimate the length of time needful for reaching it. St. Louis and some other large cities have adopted the Philadelphia plan, the convenience of which is as great as its monotony. In Washington the streets running in one direction are lettered A, B, C, etc., and the cross streets are numbered; and upon the checkerboard plan is superposed another plan in which broad avenues radiate in various directions from the Capitol, and a few other centres. These avenues cut through the square system of streets in all directions, so that instead of the dull checkerboard monotony there is an almost endless variety of magnificent vistas.

Nothing could be more unlike the jagged, irregular shape of counties in Virginia or townships in Massachusetts, which grew up just as it happened. The contrast is similar to that between Chicago, with its straight streets crossing at right angles, and Boston, or London, with their labyrinths of crooked lanes. For picturesqueness the advantage is entirely with the irregular city, but for practical convenience it is quite the other way. So with our western lands the simplicity and regularity of the system have made it a marvel of convenience for the settlers, and doubtless have had much to do with the rapidity with which civil governments have been built up in the West. "This fact," says a recent writer, "will be appreciated by those who know from experience the ease and certainty with which the pioneer on the great plains of Kansas, Nebraska, or Dakota is enabled to select his homestead or locate his claim' unaided by the expensive skill of the surveyor." 1

There was more in it than this, however. There was a germ of organization planted in these western townships, which must be noted as of great importance. Each township, being six miles in length and six miles in breadth, was divided into thirty-six numbered sections, each containing just one square mile, or 640 acres. Each section, moreover, was divided into 16 tracts of 40 acres each, and sales to settlers were and are generally made by tracts at the of the rate of a dollar and a quarter per acre. For fifty dollars a man may buy forty acres of unsettled land, provided he will actually go and settle upon it, and this has proved to be a very effective inducement for enterprising young men to "go West." Many a tract thus bought for fifty dollars has turned out to

Some effects

system.

1 Howard, Local Const. Hist. of U. S., vol. i. p. 139.