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The following is taken from Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio 1778-1783 and Life of Gen. George Rogers Clark by William Hayden English. The two volumes were published by The Bowen-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, Indiana, and Kansas City, Missouri, in 1897. Chapter XXI is found on pages 825 to 838. The second part of this chapter details the land allotted to each soldier.
It will be remembered that at the time the Illinois campaign was inaugurated, George Wythe, George Mason and Thomas Jefferson wrote a joint letter to George Rogers Clark, congratulating him upon his appointment to conduct so important an enterprise, and most heartily wishing him success. The letter then gave him this assurance: "We have no doubt that some further rewards in lands in the country will be given to the volunteers who shall engage in this service in addition to the usual pay, if they are so fortunate as to succeed. We think it just and reasonable that each volunteer, entering as a common soldier in this expedition, should be allowed three hundred acres of land and the officers the usual proportion, out of the lands which may be conquered in the country now in possession of the Indians, so as not to interfere with the claims of any friendly Indians, or any people willing to become subjects of this commonwealth; and for this we think you may safely confide in the justice and generosity of the Virginia assembly." A fac-simile of this historic letter, dated January 3, 1778, has already been given in a previous chapter, and these gentlemen, no doubt, exercised all their influence to carry out the assurances then given.
On the 2d of January, 1781, the general assembly of Virginia adopted a resolution providing that, "as Colonel George Rogers Clark planned and executed the secret expedition by which the British posts were reduced, and was promised if the enterprise succeeded a liberal gratuity in lands in that country for the officers and soldiers who first marched thither with him, that a quantity of land not exceeding one hundred and fifty thousand acres be allowed and granted to the said officers and soldiers, and the other officers and soldiers that have been since incorporated into the said regiment, to be laid off in one tract, the length of which not to exceed double the breadth, in such place on the northwest side of the Ohio as the majority of the officers shall choose, and to be afterwards divided among the said officers and soldiers in due proportion according to the laws of Virginia."* (*Hening, 10, 565.)
In 1783 another act was passed by Virginia, "for locating and surveying the one hundred and fifty thousand acres of land granted by a resolution of assembly to Colonel George Rogers Clark, and the officers and soldiers who assisted in the reduction of the British posts in the Illinois: "Be it enacted by the General Assembly, That William Fleming, John Edwards, John Campbell, Walker Daniel, gentlemen, and George Rogers Clark, John Montgomery, Abraham Chaplin, John Bailey, Robert Todd, and William Clark, officers in the Illinois regiment, shall be and they are hereby constituted a board of commissioners, and that they, or the major part of them, shall settle and determine the claims to land under the said resolution. That the respective claimants shall give in their claims to the said commissioners on or before the first day of April, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four; and, if approved and allowed, shall pay down to the said commissioners one dollar for every hundred acres of such claim, to enable them to survey and apportion the said lands. The said commissioners shall appoint a principal surveyor who shall have power to appoint his deputies, to be approved by the said commissioners, and to contract with him for his fees. That from and after the said first day of April, one thousand seven hundred and eighty-four, the said commissioners, or the major part of them