The Land Office

The Ohio Company Land Office, Marietta, Ohio (image from Roseohioresident), built in 1788 (oldest known building in Ohio).  The building is located in Marietta, Ohio at the Campus Martius Museum of the Northwest Territory.

I've attached many Bureau of Land Management General Land Office records to various ancestors, and when I see the land office name I've always wondered what the actual land office looked like.  I can't find a direct ancestor who bought land from this particular office, but I would assume this is generally how the buildings would look.

Part of a 1789 advertisement by Winthrop Sargent in a New York city newspaper announcing the Ohio Company land sales.  The building above was already built!  "Advertisement. Extracts from the Journal of the Ohio Company." Gazette of the United States (New York, New York), 23 December 1789, p 4 [292], col 3; digital image, GenealogyBank (https://www.genealogybank.com : accessed 17 Nov 2016).

As an example here is my 4th great grandfather Samuel Avery's patent for land bought land in Marengo County, Alabama in 16 November 1830 at the Cahaba land office, at least 70 miles east from Marengo.  That happens to be 186 years ago as of yesterday!  (What a coincidence).  Bureau of Land Management, "Land Patent Search," digital images, General Land Office Records (http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/search/default.aspx?searchTabIndex=0&searchByTypeIndex=0 : accessed 17 Nov 2016), Samuel Avery (Marengo County, Alabama), patent no. 4424.

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