President James Madison Grants Land to a Family That Would Become Prominent in the New State of Ohio

William Moseley, the soldier, was a major in the Virginia Line who was wounded at the Battle of Brandywine and captured at the surrender of Charleston

The Virginia Military Lands were a body of land lying between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers in Ohio, bounded by the Ohio River on the south, and Auglaize, Hardin, and Marion Counties on the north. This tract in the southwestern part of the state contains about four million acres. The state of Virginia, from the terms of expression in its original charter from King James I of England, in the year 1609, claimed all the land west of the Ohio River. But after the attainment of American independence, this and other conflicting claims were compromised in order to set up the Northwest Territory. Virginia agreed to relinquish all her claims to the lands northwest of the Ohio River in favor of the Federal government, upon condition that the lands called Virginia Military Lands be guaranteed to her to grant to her troops who had served in the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. Congress agreed with this arrangement in “An act to enable the officers and soldiers of the Virginia line on continental establishment, to obtain titles to certain lands lying north west of the river Ohio, between the Little Miami and Sciota.”

Document signed, Philadelphia, July 23, 1812, being one of the grants in the Virginia Military Lands. “James Madison, President of the United States of America…Greeting: Know ye, That, in consideration of military service performed by William Moseley (a Major for three years) to the United States, in the Virginia Line on Continental Establishment, and in pursuance of an Act of the Congress of the United States, passed on the 10th day of August in the year 1790, entitled ‘An Act to enable the Officers and Soldiers of the Virginia Line on Continental Establishment, to obtain titles to certain lands lying north-west of the River Ohio, between the Little Miami and Sciota;’ and another Act of the said Congress Passed on the 9th day of June, in the year 1794, amendatory of the said Act, There is granted by the United States unto Sarah W. Smith, wife of Ichabod Halsey Thomas Smith, John Wesley Smith, Elizabeth Smith, Magdalen Smith, Judith Smith, Cynthia Smith, and George I. Smith, children and heirs of James Smith, deceased, who was assignee of the said William Moseley a certain tract of land, containing One Thousand acres situate between the Little Miami and Sciota Rivers, north-west of the River Ohio…” One thousand acres was a very considerable acreage at the time. The document is countersigned by Edward Tifflen as Commissioner of the Land Office, and the Great Seal of the U.S. is still present.

Major Moseley served in the 5th Virginia Regiment as a captain, then was promoted to major. He was in the battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777, and was severely wounded in the thigh by a musket ball. He was afterwards transferred to the Southern army and was taken prisoner at the capitulation of Charleston in 1780. In returning from Charleston he was shipwrecked with many other officers from the state of Virginia and after enduring great suffering managed to reach land. He died in 1812. The Smiths moved to Ohio and because prominent in public affairs, one of them being president of the Ohio State Senate and another a member of Congress.