# United States Statutes at Large/Volume 1/4th Congress/1st Session/Chapter 46

Chap. ⅩⅬⅥ.—An Act regulating the grants of land appropriated for Military services, and for the Society of the United Brethren, for propagating the Gospel among the Heathen.
Act of May 18, 1796, ch. 29. Surveyor General to cause certain lands to be surveyed. Post, p. 724.Section 1. 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 required, to cause to be surveyed, the tract of land beginning at the northwest corner of the seven ranges of townships, and running thence fifty miles due south, along the western boundary of the said ranges; thence due west to the main branch of the Scioto river; thence up the main branch of the said river, to the place where the Indian boundary line crosses the same; thence along the said boundary line, to the Tuscaroras branch of the Muskingum river, at the crossing place above Fort Lawrence; thence up the said river, to the point, where a line, run due west from the place of beginning, will intersect the said river; thence along the line so run to the place of beginning; and shall cause the said tracts to be divided into townships of five miles square, by running, marking and numbering the exterior lines of the said townships, and marking corners in the said lines, at the distance of two and one half miles from each other, in the manner directed by the act, intituled “An act providing for the sales of the lands of the United States, in the territory northwest of the river Ohio, and above the mouth of Kentucky river;” and that the lands above described, except the salt springs therein, and the same quantities of land adjacent thereto, as are directed to be reserved with the salt springs, in the said recited act, and such tracts within the boundaries of the same, as have ​been heretofore appropriated by Congress, be, and they are hereby, set apart and reserved for the purposes herein after mentioned.
Duty of the Secretary of the Treasury herein.Sec. 2. And be it further enacted, That the said land shall be granted only in tracts containing a quarter of the township to which they belong, lying at the corners thereof; and that the Secretary of the Treasury shall, for the space of nine months, after public notice in the several states and territories, register warrants for military services, to the amount of anyone or more tracts, for any person or persons holding the same; and shall immediately after the expiration of the said time, proceed to determine, by lot, to be drawn in the presence of the secretaries of state and of war, the priority of location of the said registered warrants; Priority of location how determined,and the person or persons holding the same, shall severally make their locations, after the lots shall be proclaimed, on a day to be previously fixed in the before mentioned notice; in failure of which, they shall be postponed in locating such warrants, to all other persons holding registered warrants: and patents granted.And the patents for all lands located under the authority of this act, shall be granted in the manner directed by the before mentioned act, without requiring any fee therefor.
Privilege to certain persons holding warrants,Sec. 3. And be it further enacted, That after the time limited for making the locations, as aforesaid, any person or persons holding warrants, of the before mentioned description, sufficient to cover anyone or more tracts, as aforesaid, shall be at liberty to make their locations, on any tract or tracts not before located.
and lands unlocated after the 1st January, to be at disposition of United States. Claims limited. Post, p. 724.Sec. 4. And be it further enacted, That all the lands set apart by the first section of this act, which shall remain unlocated on the first day of January, in the year one thousand eight hundred, shall be released from the said reservation, and shall be at the free disposition of the United States, in like manner as any other vacant territory of the United States. And all warrants or claims for lands on account of military services, which shall not, before the day aforesaid, be registered and located, shall be forever barred.
Three tracts to be surveyed for Society for propagating the Gospel among the heathen.Sec. 5. And be it further enacted, That the said surveyor general be, and he is hereby, required to cause to be surveyed three several tracts of land, containing four thousand acres each, at Shoenbrun, Gnadenhutten, and Salem; being the tracts formerly set apart, by an ordinance of Congress of the third of September, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, for the society of United Brethren for propagating the gospel among the heathen; and to issue a patent or patents for the said three tracts to the said society, in trust, for the uses and purposes in the said ordinance set forth.
Reservations.Sec. 6. And be it further enacted, That all navigable streams or rivers within the territory to be disposed of, by virtue of this act, shall be deemed to be and remain public highways. And that, in all cases, where the opposite banks of any stream not navigable shall belong to different persons, the stream and the bed thereof shall be common to both.
Approved, June 1, 1796.