Allen line: An Act of Congress for John Starr and others

By Authority


Sixth Congress of the United States, at the Second Session, begun and held at the City of Washington, in the Territory of Columbia, on Monday the Seventeenth of November, one thousand eight hundred.
An Act regarding the grants of lands appropriated for the Refugees from the British provinces of Canada and Nova Scotia

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the surveyor general be, and he is hereby directed to cause those fractional townships of the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, twentieth, twenty first and twenty second ranges of townships, which join the southern boundary of the military lands, to be sub-divided into half-sections, containing three hundred and twenty acres each; and to return a survey and description of the same to the Secretary of the Treasury, on or before the first Monday of December next; and that the said lands be, and they hereby are set apart for the purpose of satisfying claims of persons entitled to lands under the act, entitled, "An act for the relief of the refugees from the British provinces of Canada and Nova Scotia.

Sec. 1.  And be it further enacted, T the Secretary of the Treasury shall, within thirdy days after the survey of the lands shall have been returned to him as aforesaid, proceed to determine by lots, to be drawn in the presence of the Secretaries of State and of War, the priority of location of the persons entitled to land as aforesaid.  The persons thus entitled, shall severally make their locations on the second Tuesday of January next, and the patents for the land thus located shall be granted in the manner directed for military lands, without requiring any fee whatever.

Sec. 2  And it is further enacted, That the following persons, claiming lands under the above act, shall respectively be entitled to the following quantities of land; that is to say, Martha Walker, Widow of Thomas Walker, John Edgar, P. Francis Cuzeau, John Allan, and Seth Harding, respectively, two thousand two hundred and forty acres each;  Jonathan Eddy, colonel James Livingston and Parker Clark, respectively, one thousand two hundred and eighty acres each, and the heirs of James Dodge, one thousand two hundred and eighty acres; Thomas Faulkner, Edward Faulkner, David Gay, Martin Brooks, lieutenant colonel Bradford, Noah Miller, Joshua Lamb, Atwood Fales, JOHN STARR, William Haw, Ebenezar Gardner, Lewis F. Delefdernier, John McGown and Jonas C. Minot, respectively nine hundred and fifty acres each; and the heirs of Simeon Chester nine hundred and fifty acres; Jacob Vander Heyden, John Livingston, James Crawford, Isaac Danks, major B. Van Heer, Benjamin Thompson, Joseph Binden,  Joseph Levittre, lieutenant William Maxwell, John D. Mercier, James Price, Seth Noble, Martha Bogart, relict of Abraham Bogart, and formerly relict of Daniel Tucker and John Halstead, respectively, six hundred and forty acres each; David Jenks, Ambrose Cole, James Cole, Adam Johnston, the widow and heirs of Jeremiah Duggan, Daniel Earl, junior, John Paskell, Edward Chinn, Joseph Cone, and John Thrreyre, respectively, three hundred and twenty acres each; Samuel Fales one hundred and sixty acres; which several tracts of land shall, except the last, be located in half sections by the respective claimants. 

Theodore Sedgwick
Speaker of the House of Representatives
Th: Jefferson
Vice President of the United States and
  President of the Senate

Approved February 18, A.D. 1801
John Adams
President of the United States

I've tried to type this as closely to the newspaper account as I could.  I may have misread names, and the capitalization of John Starr is for family ease in finding it.  Otherwise, it was interesting to type this out.  For instance, what is the difference between a widow and a relict?  I thought those were interchangeable.  What was the basis for determining the amount of land each person got? Was it based on economic losses as presented to some committee, or the number of dependents the person had, or some other basis? Some of those last names are family names.  Were those cousins? I also wonder how long it took before the land was actually surveyed and divided.  John Starr didn't go to Ohio, so far as is known, until 1812, when he was 69 years old and one arm was disabled from a wound received at Fort Griswold.  Was he waiting for some of his children to go with him, or did it take this long to get the actual land grant?

Like so many other things we learn, once we learn a fact or two, we learn there are more facts to learn! 

The line of descent is:

John Starr-Margaret Sharp
John Starr-Elizabeth Chester Havens
John Havens Starr-Clarissa Falley
Harriet Starr-John Wilson Knott
Edith Knott-Edward Allen
Richard Allen-Gladys Holbrook
Their descendants