Seven Ranges Terminus

About this property

Seven Ranges Terminus is a stone surveying marker near Magnolia, Ohio that marks the completion in 1786 of the first step in opening the lands northwest of the Ohio River to sale and settlement by Americans. This survey marked the first application of the rectangular plan for subdividing land in the United States, which was to be widely used in nearly all later surveys of western lands in the U.S. With victory in the Revolutionary War, the Treaty of Paris granted the United States lands north of the Ohio River, south of the Great Lakes, and east of the Mississippi River, called the Northwest Territory. The US Congress adopted the Land Ordinance of 1785 as a method for surveying, selling and settling these lands. This ordinance established a method for surveying the land into a grid of six mile square survey townships. These townships were to be arranged into vertical rows called “Ranges”. The first ranges were to be measured from a meridian along the western boundary of Pennsylvania. The townships in each range were measured from an east-west line called a baseline. This became the genesis of the techniques used in the Public Land Survey System. The 1785 ordinance called for the Geographer of the United States, Thomas Hutchins, to personally supervise the first survey. It called for Hutchins to establish a Point of Beginning on the north bank of the Ohio River where it leaves Pennsylvania. From there he was to establish a baseline seven ranges wide, (42 miles), called the “Geographer’s Line”, and then survey north-south lines each six miles to mark the edges of the ranges, and then establish the south boundary of each township. After each seven ranges had been completed, the Geographer was to return plats to the federal government for marketing and sale. Hutchins, along with prominent surveyors from ten states appointed by Congress, began surveying the Geographer's Line in 1785, but stopped after only a few miles because of troubles with Indians. In 1786, with protection of troops from Fort Steuben, Hutchins resumed the survey. In September 1786, Hutchins placed a stone cadastral survey marker at the west edge of the seventh range on the Geographer's Line, a spot later to be known as the Seven Ranges Terminus. After the first surveyed seven ranges had been completed some years later, the survey tract was known as the Seven Ranges, or Old Seven Ranges. Rose Township, Carroll County, Ohio Township 16, Range 7 of Old Seven Ranges Sandy Township, Stark County, Ohio Township 17, Range 7 of Congress Lands North of Old Seven Ranges Pike Township, Stark County, Ohio Township 8, Range 8 of Congress Lands North of Old Seven Ranges

Location

Categories

Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

More in Stark County

Historic places, battles, and census history across Stark County.

More historic places in Ohio

Browse all historic places in Ohio.

Conflict records

Explore 19,000+ military engagements across American history.

Ohio history

Colonial settlement, territorial period, and statehood narrative.