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Early Real Estate Speculation in the Ohio Valley

Luring French Immigrants to Ohio

Only Known Copy with the Map

A superlatively rare promotional tract for the Scioto Company with an important Ohio map, here in the preferred first state. The map is a French interpretation of Manasseh Cutler's unobtainable original which was intended to accompany his An Explanation of the Map Which Delineates that Part of the Federal Lands, comprehended between Pennsylvania West Line, the Rivers Ohio and Sioto (Salem, Mass., 1787). The reason for the existence of a French edition of Cutler's text and map has an interesting history which is detailed below.

According to Streeter, who owned a copy of the 1787 Salem edition, Cutler's map was published six months after his text, thus explaining why it "does not accompany any known copy of the pamphlet" - Streeter. The present French translation of Cutler's pamphlet represents a similar case, with the best authority, R. W. G. Vail, asserting that it was "probably issued without the map but perhaps intended to accompany the French map, obviously based on Cutler's map." Howes offers a similar explanation, that the French text and map were sold separately: "the map...was not issued with either French or English copies; it was published in both languages but sold separately."

Our example of the French text, with the appropriate French edition of the map clearly issued with the pamphlet, likely stands as the only complete copy extant.

Vail states that the French map, engraved by Tardieu, "may also have appeared with the Scioto Land Company Prospectus," a similarly rare publication with the title: Prospectus pour l'éstablissement sur les rivières d'Ohio et de Scioto en Amérique (Paris, 1789). Both French language publications and the French version of the map were issued by the Scioto Company, which was associated with the Ohio Company, a group of American land speculators who in 1786 received a grant of several million acres from Congress along the Ohio in the vicinity of the Scioto and Muskingum Rivers. The Scioto Company was organized to market some of these lands to prospective French investors and emigrants. It failed to meet its contract with the Ohio Company, and issued worthless deeds to about 150,000 acres before it collapsed in 1790.

Important Ohio Map

The beautifully engraved map shows all of the present State of Ohio from Lake Erie south to the Ohio River, and as far west as the Scioto. It includes the Seven Ranges of Townships, laid out in 1786 by Thomas Hutchins, Surveyor General of the United States, the first part of United States Territory surveyed according the pattern subsequently used for all territory as far west as the Pacific. Just to the west is the original Ohio Company Grant (colored pink), and beyond, in blue, is the proposed Scioto Company purchase.

A simplified and more common second state of the map was published in the same year. It omits many details shown on the first state, including the Seven Ranges, and the town of Marietta ("Mariana"), founded in 1787. Named in honor of Marie Antoinette, Thomas Smith speculated that the town may have been erased because of the Queen's "considerable loss of popularity among the French people by 1789". Smith also states that Antoine-François Tardieu, Pierre-François Tardieu's nephew, actually engraved the map.

The Scioto Company

The Scioto Company, was formed in 1787 by Colonel William Duer and several associates. It was reorganized in 1789, in Paris, as the Compagnie du Scioto and focused on attracting French investors. The Company had arranged to purchase of 4 million acres from the Ohio Company, occupying the western portion of their lands. For a time "Sciotomanie" spread through the salons of Paris, as many of the France's wealthiest and most esteemed figures enthusiastically invested in the endeavor.

However, the Scioto Company proved to be only one of Duer's several spectacular failures, ultimately defaulting on its payments to the Ohio Company. In 1791, 218 French settlers arrived in Ohio to find that the Scioto Company was a chimera, and that no provisions had been made for their presence. Arriving in Marietta (founded in 1788), noted on the map, the settlers were soon moved to Gallipolis (noted here as Premiere Ville), a crude settlement that was created especially for them.

A 1794 opinion by the U.S. Attorney General officially voided the Scioto Company's claims. On March 31, 1795, the U.S. Congress felt compelled to arrange for some form of restitution for the beleaguered French settlers, granting them 24,000 acres on the Ohio, just down river from the mouth of the Scioto. Elsewhere, French settlers were permitted to purchase the lands they occupied for $1.25 per acre.

Thomson includes an interesting account of the Scioto Company supplied to him by John M. Newton, of the Mercantile Library of Cincinnati:

The origin of the Scioto Company is quite obscure. After the Revolution, the United States found themselves quite poor and unable to pay their debts. Congress had issued to officers and soldiers certificates of indebtedness, called indents. As the government could not cash these indents, they depreciated so much to be worth but ten cents on the dollar. Many of the officers and soldiers therefore tame out of the war ruined. Congress sitting at New York, in 1787, had admitted the Territory Northwest of the River Ohio, and could pay their indebtedness in land. A number of New England officers formed themselves into a company at Boston, called the Ohio Company, and sent Rev. Manasseh Cutler and Winthrop Sargent as their agents to the Congress, to obtain as large an amount of land as they could for the indents which they held. Cutler kept a journal in which is says, date of July 20, 1787: "Colonel Duer came to me with proposals from a number of the principal characters of the city to extend our contract and take in another company, but that is should be kept a profound secret." This other company was taken in, and all difficulties in the way were removed. The Ohio Company made a contract to purchase about five millions of acres, and Duer and associates organized another company which contracted from the Ohio Company, for one and one-half millions.... The Ohio Company paid in indents and made settlements at Marietta, Ohio, and vicinity, while the Tustees of the Scioto Company, William Duer, Royal Flint and Andrew Craigie sent Joel Barlow, the revolutionary poet, to Europe, to sell lands for which they had contracted to buy, but which had not yet been bought. Barlow first went to London, but could not secceed there, and then went to Paris in the summer of 1789. In July of that year, the Bastile was taken. Society was greatly disturbed. Many feared the total destruction of their property, and at this crisis, Barlow, with the aid of William Playfair, composed and sent out a prospectus glowing with the advantages which a state of nature and a virgin soil afforded the occupant. Ships were to take the purchasers over the sea, habitations and a year's provisions would be given them. In exchange they were to pay about sixty-five cents an acre. Had indents remained at the great state of depreciation of ten cents on the dollar, all would have worked well. Barlow would have remitted the amount of his sales to Duer, who would have bought up the indents at the lowest figure, would have paid Congress, and the Scioto Company would have made a large amount; but unfortunately for it, as soon as the States formed a confederation, Holland stepped in, and began to buy largely all of our government certificates; these of course quickly arose in value, and the Scioto Company was ruined, and likewise ruined about five hundred French emigrants, who had crossed the sea, trusting to the promises held out in the prospectus. Duer and Craigie lost all they had, and the former died a prisoner for debt. In five years from the time when the contract was made with our Congress, the Scioto Company was not in existence, and no one could be found in answer to a demand which Congress made, who ever knew anything about it, or ever had any connection with it.

Rarity

The pamphlet alone is very rare on the market. RBH lists only 1 example offered in the past 100 Years (Maggs 1926). 

We believe this to be the only known extant example of the complete work, with the map. There are no other known examples of the map with the pamphlet. To see the text with the map present, as in our example, is extraordinary. While the pamphlet is fairly well represented in institutional confines (about a dozen copies), the OCLC master record does not describe this work as having a map.

A separate record for the map by itself notes 6 holdings (New York Public, Huntington, Library of Congress, Society of the Cincinnati, Harvard and Marietta College). Both Thomson and Sabin fail to mention the map which so obviously belongs with the work (though Thompson mentions a map showing "the lands belonging to the Ohio and Scioto Companies" as accompanying the Prospectus (see Thomson 959).