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Partly-printed vellum DS, signed "Th: Jefferson" as president and "James Madison" as secretary of state, one page, 12 x 14.5, August 24, 1801. President Jefferson approves a land grant for “one hundred acres,” issued to William Rosson under the provisions of "An Act to enable the Officers and Soldiers of the Virginia Line on Continental Establishment, to obtain Titles to certain Lands lying north west of the river Ohio, between the Little Miami and Sciota.” Signed at the conclusion by Thomas Jefferson and countersigned by James Madison. The docketing on the reverse is signed by Robert Smith as Acting Secretary of War; he also served as Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of State, and U.S. Attorney General. The lower left corner retains the original red paper seal. In very good condition, with some paper loss to folds and edges, and heavy staining to the central vertical fold, encroaching on the start of Madison's signature.
The act cited in this grant was passed by Congress on August 10, 1790, and amended on June 9, 1794. It established a process for Revolutionary War veterans of Virginia's Continental Line to obtain title to bounty lands reserved for them when Virginia ceded its western territorial claims to the federal government in 1784. These lands comprised the Virginia Military District, a roughly 4.2-million-acre tract between the Little Miami and Scioto Rivers in what is now Ohio. At the time of this grant, Ohio was still a federal territory, attaining statehood in 1803, and the General Land Office had not yet been created. The formal patent process therefore passed through the Department of State, accounting for Secretary of State James Madison's countersignature alongside President Jefferson's.
The document dates from the opening months of Jefferson's presidency, less than six months after his inauguration on March 4, 1801. The docketing on the reverse bears the signature of Robert Smith as Acting Secretary of War. Smith had been confirmed as Jefferson's Secretary of the Navy on July 27, 1801, less than a month before this grant, while Henry Dearborn was the administration's Secretary of War. Smith subsequently served briefly as Attorney General before becoming Secretary of State under Madison from 1809 to 1811.
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