THE STORY OF OUR PUBLIC DOMAIN 25 



hired Hessians, as a reward for deserting and set- 

 tling in the new country; and that liberal grants 

 were offered to all American soldiers who should 

 serve throughout the war. There were many bene- 

 ficiaries of both classes. 



The war was followed by vigorous emigration 

 into the Northwest Territory, of which Ohio was 

 the central and most popular part, and vigorous ex- 

 pansions of settlement in all the states. Sales for 

 government support were specially satisfactory in 

 Ohio, great areas of whose finest land, much of it 

 yielding later fortunes in white pine and black wal- 

 nut, to say nothing of prosperous farms and settle- 

 ments, brought thirty cents an acre; but it was a 

 high price for the times. In 1787, Jefferson wrote: 

 "I am very much pleased that our western lands sell 

 so successfully. I turn to this precious resource as 

 that which will in every event liberate us from our 

 domestic debt, and perhaps too from our foreign 



one." 



Real estate speculating began early. One sale 

 of 240,540 acres is recorded to John Cleve Symmes 

 of New Jersey, another of 822,900 acres to the Ohio 

 Company. 



On April 25, 1812, Congress created the office 

 of the Commissioner of the General Land Office in 

 the Treasury Department, relieving the Secretary 

 of duties which had become burdensome in the ex- 

 treme. In 1836, the Commissioner's office was made 

 a bureau of the Treasury Department, and this in 



