A General Land Office diagram showing the theoretical sectioning of a standard survey township. The General Land Office ( GLO) was an Independent agency of the United States government responsible for public domain lands in the United States Survey township, sometimes called Congressional township, as used by the United States Public Land Survey System, refers to a square unit of

The Land Ordinance of 1785 was adopted by the United States Congress on May 20, 1785. The Congress of the Confederation or the United States in Congress Assembled was the governing body of the United States of America from March 1, Events 325 - The First Council of Nicaea &ndash the first Ecumenical Council of the Christian Church is held Year 1785 ( MDCCLXXXV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Under the Articles of Confederation, Congress did not have the power to raise revenue by direct taxation of the inhabitants of the United States. The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union, also the Articles of Confederation was the governing Constitution of the alliance of thirteen independent and Therefore, the immediate goal of the ordinance was to raise money through the sale of land in the largely unmapped territory west of the original colonies acquired from Britain at the end of the Revolutionary War. The Kingdom of Great Britain, also known as the United Kingdom of Great Britain, was a State in northwest Europe, in existence from 1707 to 1800 In this article the inhabitants of the thirteen colonies that supported the American Revolution are primarily referred to as "Americans" with occasional references to "Patriots"

In addition, the act provided for the political organization of these territories. The earlier Ordinance of 1784 called for the land west of the Appalachian Mountains, north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi River to be divided into ten separate states. The Appalachian Mountains ( often called the Appalachians, are a vast system of mountains in eastern North America. The Ohio River is the largest Tributary by volume of the Mississippi River. The Mississippi River is the second longest River in the United States, with a length of from its source in Lake Itasca in Minnesota to However, it did not define the mechanism by which the land would become states, or how the territories would be governed or settled before they became states. The Ordinance of 1785, along with the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, were intended to address these political needs. The Northwest Ordinance (formally An Ordinance for the Government of the Territory of the United States North-West of the River Ohio, and also known as the Freedom

The 1785 ordinance laid the foundations of land policy in the United States of America until passage of the Homestead Act in 1862. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the The' Homestead Act' was a United States Federal law that gave an applicant freehold title to 160 Acres (one quarter section or about 65 Hectares The Land Ordinance established the basis for the Public Land Survey System. The Public Land Survey System (PLSS is a method used in the United States to survey and identify land parcels particularly for titles and deeds of rural wild or undeveloped The initial surveying was performed by Thomas Hutchins. For the former Maryland State Police Superintendent see Thomas E After he died in 1789, responsibility for surveying was transferred to the Surveyor General. Land was to be systematically surveyed into square "townships", six miles (9. Survey township, sometimes called Congressional township, as used by the United States Public Land Survey System, refers to a square unit of 656 km) on a side. Each of these townships was sub-divided into thirty-six "sections" of one square mile (2. In US land surveying, a section is an area nominally one Mile square containing 640 Acres (2 59 km²) or 640 acres. The acre is a unit of Area in a number of different systems including the imperial and U These sections could then be further subdivided for sale to settlers and land speculators.

The ordinance was also significant for establishing a mechanism for funding public education. Section 16 in each township was reserved for the maintenance of public schools. Many schools today are still located in section sixteen of their respective townships, although a great many of the school sections were sold to raise money for public education. In theory, the federal government also reserved sections 8, 11, 26 and 29 to compensate veterans of the Revolutionary War, but examination of property abstracts in Ohio indicates that this was not uniformly practiced. Ohio ( is a Midwestern state of the United States. As part of the Great Lakes region, Ohio has long been a cultural and geographical crossroads The Point of Beginning for the 1785 survey was where Ohio (as the easternmost part of the Northwest Territory), Pennsylvania and Virginia (now West Virginia) met, on the north shore of the Ohio River near East Liverpool, Ohio. See also Public Land Survey System The Point of Beginning is a surveyor 's mark at the beginning location for the wide-scale surveying of land The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ( often colloquially referred to as PA (its abbreviation by natives and Northeasterners is a state located in the Northeastern The Commonwealth of Virginia ( is an American state West Virginia ( is a state in the Appalachian Upland South, and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States, bordered by The Ohio River is the largest Tributary by volume of the Mississippi River. East Liverpool is a city in Columbiana County, Ohio, United States. There is a historical marker just north of the site, at the state line where Ohio Route 39 becomes Pennsylvania Route 68.

See also

• Northwest Ordinance
• Public Land Survey System
• Northwest Territory

External links

• Library of Congress - Ordinance Text
• Indiana Historical Bureau - Ordinance Text
• Ohio History Central - Land Ordinance of 1785
• Bureau of Land Management - Principal Meridians and Base Lines Map