Abbott agreed with Cass-the land closer to Michigan's eastern shores was far more likely to sell than the former military bounty tract. When deciding whether to follow Cass' recommendation, Meigs sought the opinion of James Abbott, a Michigan native and commissioner at the US Land Office in Detroit who knew the territory. came to this Country in the wettest season ever known, They run up the Western Boundary of the Military tract, which passes through the dividing Country between the waters running East and those running West, and they continued in the Country but a short time and saw but a Small part of it.Regardless of the quality of that land, Cass argued that the survey should be extended east toward Lake Saint Clair, Lake Erie, and the Detroit River, as this land was more likely to raise revenue and attract settlers. The quality of the land in this Territory has been grossly misrepresented. In a May 1816 letter to Josiah Meigs, Commissioner of the US General Land Office, Cass refuted the surveyors' negative reports: This land was to be put up for sale, but its distance from any existing settlement and the disparaging report of the surveyors meant that it was unlikely to bring in homesteaders. His plan reached an obstacle when Congress decided that the two million acres surveyed in the winter of 1815-1816 were unworthy to be used as bounties promised to soldiers who would serve in the military for five years. One of Lewis Cass' objectives as governor was to attract enough settlers to Michigan for the territory to achieve some degree of self sufficiency. ( This is the second and final installment of an article on the survey of Michigan and Detroit. A grid of one-square-mile sections stretches across Detroit and its suburbs.
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