Rare Early Real Estate Speculation in the Ohio Valley (Manuscript Additions!)

Rare first state of this important map for the early development of the Ohio Valley, promoting the lands of the Scioto Company.

The present example is a rare early state, pre-dating the inclusion of the Seven Ranges and other features, and with manuscript additions in the Scioto Company lands showing a townsite and boundaries.

The map was published to accompany Prospectus pour l'éstablissement sur les rivières d'Ohio et de Scioto en Amérique, Paris, 1789. The prospectus and 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 River 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. The Scioto Company failed to meet its contract with the Ohio Company, and issued worthless deeds to about 150,000 acres before it collapsed in 1790. The 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".

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 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 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), the settlers were soon moved upriver to Gallipolis, 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.

Rarity and Map States

This first state of the map was in print for a very short time and is quite rare.

The first state differs from the later state in the following primary ways:

• Pre-dates the inclusion of Thomas Hutchins survey of the Seven Ranges and does not include the Pennsylvania Boundary at the right side of the map.
• No settlements shown on the Ohio River (later state shows the Village of Mariana (Marietta), Premiere Ville, a Fortress and an unnamed settlement.
• The Ohio Company Lands are not labeled "defrichee et habitee" (cleared and inhabited).
• No place names south of the Ohio River (Lafayette County, Kentucky, County of Ohio and the state of Virginia appear on later editions).
• Army Lands west of the Scioto River and not yet shown.