United States Statutes at Large/Volume 4/18th Congress/1st Session/Chapter 188

2716214United States Statutes at Large, Volume 4 — Public Acts of the Eighteenth Congress, First Session, Chapter 188United States Congress


May 26, 1824.
[Obsolete.]

Chap. CLXXXVIII.An Act to authorize the President of the United States to enter into certain negotiations relative to lands located under Virginia military land warrants lying between Ludlow’s and Robert’s lines, in the state of Ohio.[1]

The President authorized to ascertain the number of acres of land lying between Ludlow’s and Robert’s lines, in Ohio.Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That the President of the United States shall be, and he is hereby, authorized to ascertain the number of acres, and, by appraisement or otherwise, the value thereof, exclusive of improvements, of all such lands lying between Ludlow’s and Robert’s lines, in the state of Ohio, as may, agreeably to the principles of a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Doddridge’s lessee, against Thompson and Wright, be held by persons under Virginia military warrants, and on what terms the holders will relinquish the same to the United States, and that he report the facts at the commencement of the next session of Congress.

Approved, May 26, 1824.


  1. Under the reservation contained in the cession act of Virginia, and under the acts of Congress of August 10, 1790, ch. 40, and of June 9, 1794, ch. 62, the whole country between the Scioto and Little Miami rivers was subjected to the military warrants to satisfy which the reserve was made. Doddridge v. Thompson, 9 Wheaton, 469; 5 Cond. Rep. 645.The territory lying between the two rivers, is the whole country from their sources to their mouths; and if no branch of either of them has acquired the name, exclusive of another, the main branch to its source must be considered as the true river. Ibid.The act of June 26, 1812, ch. 109, to ascertain the western boundary of the tract reserved for the military warrants, and which provisionally designates Ludlow’s line as the western boundary, did not invalidate the title to land between that line and Robert’s line, acquired under a Virginia military warrant, previous to the passage of that act. Ibid.The land between Ludlow’s and Robert’s line was not withdrawn from the territory liable to be surveyed for military warrants, by any act of Congress passed before the act of June 26, 1812, ch. 109.