The U.S. government encouraged westward growth by selling land in the Ohio Country to settlers for a dollar an acre, The plan was to divide the township into one-square-mile sections, with each section encompassing 640 acres. Each section would receive its own number, section 16 was set aside for a public school, the Federal government reserved sections eight, eleven, twenty-six, and twenty-nine to provide veterans of the American Revolution with land bounties for their service during the war, the government would then sell the remaining sections at public auction, with the minimum bid placed at 640 dollars per section or one dollar for each acre of land in each section.
