reby revoking all other wills. Signed this eleventh day of November, one thousand seven hundred and ninety-one."
This will was proven December 6, 1791, in Jefferson county, Kentucky, by the oaths of John Clark, George R. Clark and James O'Fallon, witnesses thereto, and ordered to be recorded.
The Virginia law vested in the same commissioners one thousand acres of land to be platted into half acre lots, with convenient streets, for a town, to be called Clarksville. This was laid off just above where Silver creek empties into the Ohio at the falls, as will hereafter be more particularly shown, with other proceedings in relation to said town. After deducting the town site, one hundred and forty-nine thousand acres remained to be divided between "the officers and soldiers who assisted in the reduction of the British posts in the Illinois," and, after it was surveyed, a patent was issued for the land, December 14, 1786, a fac-simile of which, reduced one-half in size is given in this chapter. The original of this important document is on parchment, with holes eaten in it by mice, or insects, as shown in the fac-simile.
The board met at Louisville, in 1784, for the purpose of allotting the land, and on the 3d of August of that year came to the following important conclusions as to the class of officers and soldiers entitled to share in the same, namely: "That all officers and soldiers who marched and continued in service till the reduction of the British posts on the northwest side of the Ohio, that all who engaged and enlisted in the Illinois regiment afterwards, and served during the war, or three years, are entitled to a share of the grant under the resolution and act of assembly, and that those soldiers who have enlisted in said regiment since the 2d day of January, 1781, for three years, or during the war, are not entitled, as there seems to be no provisions made under the resolution for those who should thereafter be incorporated in the said regiment; that the officers of the regiment are entitled to a share of the land in proportion to the commissions they respectively held on the said 2d day of January, 1781, and not in proportion to the commissions they have since held in consequence of promotions, and that therefore officers commissioned since that period are not entitled at all; and that those soldiers who enlisted to serve twelve months after their arrival at Kaskaskia, agreeable to an act of assembly of the fall session of 1778, for the protection and defense of the Illinois county, who did not re-enlist in the regiment, are not included in said resolution; that those officers who were commissioned under said act and resigned before the expiration of the twelve months are not entitled; last that those who continued during the year and then retired, not having a command, are entitled."
At a meeting of the commissioners, October 10, 1787, the scope of the order was enlarged so as to include "the officers and soldiers who were left at the falls by order of Colonel Clark, when the detachment were going against the Illinois, be allowed quota of land in the grant."
In view of the way the troops were raised, the irregularity of the terms of service, and there being different campaigns, with not the same soldiers in each, it was a difficult and delicate matter to determine, exactly, who "assisted in the reduction of the British posts in the Illinois," or what officers and soldiers were entitled to the share in the land under the law.
The commissioners, however, after long and careful investigation decided who were entitled, and the quantity of land that should be allotted to each; but, in the meantime, many of the land claims had been sold and transferred by the persons designated, and deeds for the land, in such cases, did not issue in their names, but in the names of the persons then owning the claims.
In consequence of this, and the mixing in of the names of persons who only served under Clark in his subsequent campaigns against the Indians, a correct list of the officers and soldiers of the Illinois Regiment who "assi