The Ocoee District Land Grants

These Ocoee District Land Grants presented to you by:

David Johnson, Marion & DeKalb County, Tennessee County Coordinator

Joyce Gaston Reece, Polk and Cocke County, Tennessee County Coordinator

The map being presented to you on this website is taken directly from the microfilm of the original plat maps. They will differentiate slightly from maps you may have previously seen or used. These plat maps will give you, the user, the most accurate information as originally presented & corrected by the editor.

Below you will see a link to land grant certificates for Book B. As time progresses all the Ocoee Grant grant certificates will be presented via these pages. In the meantime if you have the location of the land with a Range and township number you can use the links below to see the plat maps and search for your ancestor.

Map created by David Johnson, used with permission.

Please read.

AN OVERVIEW:

In 1835, a prominent Cherokee leader, The Ridge (Major John) and a small, unofficial, party of Cherokee signed a document that became know as the 1835 Cherokee Removal Treaty. The Ridge Party who negotiated this treaty did so without the approval of Principal Chief John Ross or his council who did everything possible to nullify this treaty…unsuccessfully. Since Andrew Jackson and some congressional leadership wanted the Indians removed, they used this treaty, illegally, to make it happen. Andrew Jackson was known as an Indian fighter his entire career. He obviously held animosity toward any Native American group….the Seminole, Creek, Catawba, Chickasaw, Lumbee, Yammassee, Euchi and hundreds of others were all removed from their ancestral homes. This particular treaty ceded all remaining land of the Cherokee Indians east of the Mississippi River. All of which lay in the bounds of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Alabama.

Having given the Nation three years to move west, the final removal, per the treaty, was in 1838. This portion of the Removal is the specific ‘Trail of Tears’…being the portion in which the remaining citizens were forced from their homes to immigrate to Oklahoma.

These ceded lands in Tennessee were what was to become known as the Ocoee District. It was bounded on the East by the North Carolina state line, on the north by the Hiwassee River, which was followed precisely until it flowed into the Tennessee River where the boundary then followed it south-westward to fractional township seven located in present day Marion County, TN…on the north & west by the Tennessee River (aka Cherokee River), on the south by the Alabama and Georgia state lines. The northern-most boundary of the mountainous area that contained the Gold Land and townships 5, 6 &7 east were bounded on the north by the Little Tennessee River. The three counties that were formed in Tennessee were Bradley and Polk with several subsequent county line adjustments. (James County was not formed until much later.) Hamilton County was previously formed and line adjustments made to accommodate the new lines.

The state of Tennessee had formed Bradley County in 1836. Polk was not formed until after the Ocoee grants were allotted so at least some of the Polk Grants will show as being in Bradley County. See the maps for more information.

THE GOLD LOTS:

When the Hiwassee Purchase grants were allotted beginning in 1820, much of the mountainous area of what is now eastern Monroe & Polk County was not granted and remained in the hands of the Cherokee Nation until 1835. In a general line, this Indian Boundary ran from the Hiwassee Island (aka Jolly’s Island), up the Hiwassee River to Savannah Village. Savannah lay at the southern end of Starr’s Mtn at what we now call Gee Creek and Taylor’s Island. It then went up to the top of Starr’s traveled the top of the mountain to White Cliff. At White Cliff it went down the east side of the mountain to Conasauga Creek then up this Creek and to the Unicoi Trail. From the Unicoi Trail it ran just east of Tellico Plains to the area around Indian Boundary Lake and Flat’s Mountain. It then proceeded down Flats Mtn to Citico Creek where it enters the Little Tennessee River just adjacent to the present day community of Tallassee, Blount Co., TN.

The area includes lands in Polk and Monroe including Copper Basin, Ducktown, Turtletown, Farner, Ironsburg & Coker Creek and included Fort Armistead. Land from the Polk County line, northward to the Little Tennessee River was divided into Gold Lots of 40 acres each. Each section, of 640 acres, being divided into sixteen 40 acre lots. In the following pattern:

4 3 2 1

5 6 7 8

12 11 10 9

13 14 15 16

This allocation was decreed by the State of Tennessee on October 1, 1838. It was, obviously, suspected that gold was in the area. Only small amounts were ever found either in Georgia or Tennessee. Copper was/is in east Polk in abundance but not sought after until the mid 1850’s. The Gold Lots were auctioned off to the highest bidders during the Ocoee District Grants process. The only map showing the structure of these Gold Lots and township held in the Ocoee District and their locations to Monroe County is the 1936 Monroe County Map…although the townships in the western portion of Monroe County had been changed by then. On some grants you will see the description ‘Gold Lots’. This general area is where the land lay.

THE POLK COUNTY LINE AT THE GOLD LAND:

Please note on this map in the north-eastern portion of Polk County, the line between Monroe and Polk is not designated. For your use it can be stated that this portion of the Polk County line is the first east – west township line just north of the Hiwassee River

THE IRON ACT:

Also enacted was the Iron Act which was supposed to encourage the production of iron ore in the area. This act was a bit useless since there were several businesses of the type already established by the machinations of Cherokee Agent, Return Jonathan Meigs.

UNASSIGNED LAND:

When studying these grants one will notice that much of the land was listed as being granted to men like William Wetmore, Luke Lea and Pleasant J.R. Edwards. For the most part this was the land in the Appalachian Mountains that was considered uninhabitable….although some families descended from Scottish Highlanders adapted easily. One such family was that of Absalom Stratton who is interred on the Tennessee & North Carolina state line on the Cherohala Skyway in Monroe and Graham Counties. Much of this land is now the southern end of the Cherokee National Forest.

LAND DEEDS AND THEIR RELATIONSHIP TO THESE MAPS & GRANTS:

Soon after the grants were allocated, the county’s were formed then reformed so some deeds will be deceptive. It is better to locate the land by using the original Ocoee District Map and the information on the grant. Here’s why. After the counties began laying off their tax districts fractional townships were eliminated and townships often re-numbered. The description given in deeds will often depend on WHEN the deed was issued. It wasn’t a great number of years until these land descriptions weren’t used at all. Therefore it is best to use these original maps when attempting to locate granted land.

This information is for those residents who lived in the land area that was McMinn County until the formation of Polk County:

The county line of McMinn County on the southwest end was bordered by the Hiwassee River from 1817 to 1838. When Polk was formed in 1838 the southern border of McMinn County was moved northward (to where it lies today). So for those who are researching land that is now in Polk and north of the Hiwassee they will find land grants for that area in the Hiwassee District grants.

QUESTIONABLE DEBACAL:

On August 3, 1839, 40 tracts of land of 160 acres each was entered for the Nashville University and East Tennessee College. The land agent for this was Robert Wear. The land received was well over 8,800 acres. It was enacted that these tracts should be set aside for these two schools. Why this occurred is the question.

SCHOOL LAND:

In line with the standard practices that come down from the Northwest Ordinance system, section #16 of each township was to be reserved for land to create schools. Six-hundred and forty acre tracts was set aside for the usage of the schools

A quote from The History of Polk County by respected historian Mr. Roy G. Lillard.

“County School Lands were provided for by the Northwest Ordinance of 1789. The history of common school land of Polk County began with the Act of the Tennessee Legislature of October 18, 1836. It stipulated that the sixteenth section of every township in the Ocoee District was to be reserved to the citizens of the said township for school purposes, forever. Due to lack of records it cannot definitely be determined that each thirty-six square miles in Polk County was allowed a section for school purposes, however, this was probably the case.”

A total of 6,400 acres was allotted for school land in the Ocoee District Each 16^th section was to be designated as school land & a full slate of “640 acres per township” was the standard allotment or ten sections.

THE CHEROKEE RESERVATIONS:

The land being held by Cherokee citizens as a result of the 1817 & 1819 Reservation Treaties had little effect on the land grants. All four states (Tennessee, Georgia, North Carolina and Alabama) had enacted Recapitulation Laws that saw the reservations turned back to the individual states. Each individual Reservation was handled differently but many were sold well before the 1835 Removal Treaty.

READING & UNDERSTANDING THE MAP

One of the best genealogical tools we have is being able to know exactly where our ancestors may have lived, how they lived and who their neighbors were. Understanding this map and locating your ancestor is the purpose of this section. YOU will need to read and understand the information below before attempting to locate any tract of land.

THE BASE (MERIDIAN) LINE:

This map is based on a ‘grid’ system. In 1817 to 1820 the Hiwassee Purchase and its accompanying map was the first time this type map had been used in the USA. In the Hiwassee District the primary north/south line was called the Meridian line. In the Ocoee it was called the BASE Line. Everything was either WEST or EAST of this line. It was not a true north / south line. This BASE line began at the township of Charleston on the Hiwassee River TN to run to just west of where the Conasauga River flows back into Georgia in southern Bradley County.

RANGES:

Range lines were topographically every SIX miles, east or west and placed numerically. West of the base line was RANGES 1 -7 numbered from east to west. East of the base line the RANGES were numbered 1-7 numbered from west to east (beginning at the base line).

TOWNSHIPS:

Here we must define Fractional Townships as opposed to Townships. When these maps were originally done they were created with some townships being fractional or less than the complete townships of 36 square miles.

Thirty-six sections equaled one township.

SECTIONS:

You will please note there are 36 SECTIONS placed as follows:

6 5 4 3 2 1

7 8 9 10 11 12

18 17 16 15 14 13

19 20 21 22 23 24

30 29 28 27 26 25

31 32 33 34 35 36

In each section is 640 acres (a square mile) which were divided up into four areas….Northeast (NE), northwest (NW), southeast(SE) & southwest (SW). These were the QUARTER SECTIONS. Each quarter section was 160 acres. Quarter sections were often subdivided into 40 or 80 acres. CORNERS were smaller sections within each quarter section and listed as the, for example, south east corner of the north west quarter section.

In the instances in which the land lay in a FRACTIONAL TOWNSHIP is where we see the exceptions to the above rule. These would have been in the townships where the above full 36 square miles did not exist….along rivers, state lines, Indian boundaries or other occurrences. In these cases you will see odd numbers of acreage being allotted. Full SECTIONS in FRACTIONAL TOWNSHIPS were handled the same as noted above.

Some users may have the info from a well used book on many shelves in libraries “Abstracts of Ocoee District Early Land Records Entries” by Lucille McClure. In order to understand and use her book you will need to know the following:

The TRACTS of land were assigned a number with the date always given.

So when reading a grant you will see (an example) R1E - FT1S #1 - SWcSEq

Translated this is Range one, East of the Base line, located in fractional township one, south, in the southwest corner of the Southeast quarter. It was 40 acres.

Another example is this:

R1E T1 #7 SWcSWq

Range one, west of the base line, in township one, section #7, Southeast corner, South west quarter section.

To determine where the townships are one must refer back to the map. (Please note that she has incorrectly labeled the townships in Range 3 West as they deviate from the original assigned township numbers. There could be other errors as well.)

OTHER INFORMATION:

As stated earlier each tract of land was assigned a tract number, Also given is the name, acreage, type of grant, location, date and amount paid.

TYPES:

OE – Occupant Enterer

GE - General Enterer

TRE – Transferred

AOE – Assignee of Occupant Enterer

OTHER IMPORTANT INFORMATION:

The map being presented to you on this website is taken directly from the microfilm of the original plat maps. They will differentiate slightly from maps you may have previously seen or used in the past. These plat maps will give you, the user, the most accurate information as originally presented.

Range 3 WEST had 5 fractional townships north and two south but the Registrar in making out the grants always called “Range 3W FT2S” as “Range 3W T6”. The plat book has that Township as FT2S not FT6. You are being linked to the correct place if looking at tracts in Range 3. That is the surveyors official layout in the plat. There are several grants that gave another wrong township because the township named on the grant did not exist by that name. Of the many errors by the Register, only the R3W T6 error was every time. There were many other Register errors, and were researched on the plat maps and the right location found. The township numbers was incorrect.

There were also 8 plat pages missing from the plat book images on microfilm. Found were many grants in Book B on all of the townships. For those townships with no plat pages, these have been reconstructed or will be reconstructed as we get information from the grant pages.

This is a corrected version of the original. New plat pages are in progress. If there is disagreement between the plat book and the grant, the plat is what is chosen as correct. In most cases the Register did not know his north from his south and ignored the correct name for things in writing the grant.

The grants do not give the selling price per acre. On the plat book pages the price per acre cost is given. In PDF form (Google Books) for "Land Laws of Tennessee" tells that an occupant has first rights to buy the land for a number of months after the grants start. After two months, anyone can claim it and buy it. After a second two months, it is again reserved to the occupant if nobody else bought it and it is reserved to him for two months. Cycle over and over again. Each 4 month period the price per acre dropped by this plan until it hit 1 cent or perhaps 1/2 cent per acre.

INDEX TO BOOK B

Once you have located a name you wish to view please click on the link below which will take you to the Marion County site where these certificates now reside.

http://tngenweb.org/marion/archive/deeds/Ocoee_B.html

www.tngenweb.org/marion

Follow the ARCHIVES link to DEEDS then Ocoee Land Grants

(Images of Book B Grant Certificates coming soon)

In these Ocoee land grants there were well over 9,000 grants. Book B represents only 486 of them. This is a long term project being done by tngenweb county coordinators David Johnson and Joyce G. Reece. We will post more as we get them completed.

The following links go directly to the original plat pages as taken from microfilm. They will be difficult to read. The files are deliberately left large so you can download them and make them large enough to read easier on your computer.

T - Township

FT - Fractional Township

S - South

N - North

E - East

W - West

Ranges are numerical 1-7 west & 7 - 1 East

RANGES WEST