Description
Land Office Treasury Warrant for Revolutionary War officer, George Rodgers Clark, the “Conqueror of the Northwest,” granting him 560 acres in the Northwest Territory in January of 1790. This is Warrant No. 2718.
Document measures 8.25″ x 6.5″. Includes the embossed wax Land Office seal. Notable wear along edges, soiling and spotting to both sides. Faded ink.
Full text reads, where legible, as follows: “To the principal Surveyor of any County within the Commonwealth of Virginia. This shall be your WARRANT to Survey and lay off in one or more Surveys, for George Rogers Clark his Heirs or Assigns, the Quantity of Five hundred and Sixty Acres of Land, due unto the said Clark, in trust for Recruiting his Battalion & in lieu of the bounty of 750 dollars & in Consideration of the Sum of Two hundred Twenty four pounds current Money paid into the public Treasury; the Payment whereof to the Treasurer hath been duly certified by the Auditors of public Accounts, and their Certificate received into the Land Office. GIVEN under my Hand, and the Seal of the said Office, on this Twenty ninth day of January in the Year One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighty. S: Carr _ L.O”
In 1780, Virginia Governor Thomas Jefferson authorized Clark to recruit men for the defense of the Ohio River Valley, by awarding large land grants as compensation for their military service. Three hundred grants were issued, consisting of 150,000 acres located in the Northwest Territory, near the Falls of the Ohio, in what is now southern Indiana and Kentucky. Clark personally received 8,049 acres, while the remainder was divided among his officers and soldiers. The land was intended both as a reward and as a means to encourage settlement in the western frontier. The area became known as the “Clark Grant.”
