Colonel [Benjamin] Hawkins and the agents of the factories at Tellico in Tennessee, and in Georgia, will communicate immediately with the secretary of war as usual.
I have the honor to be, with sentiments of esteem, your humble servant.
Harrison to Sec. of War
Sir:
The subject of the boundary line between us and the Indians, has engaged my attention for some time past; and as I consider myself possessed of all the information relating to it which I am likely to obtain in this quarter, I have thought it best to state to you the result of my inquiries and reflections.
If the obvious construction of the treaty of Greenville[1] is to be taken as the ground upon which our claim to land in this country is to be supported, I believe it will be found to be much more extensive than is generally imagined. The tract which the United States may rightfully claim, extends on the Wabash from Point Coupee, 12 leagues above the mouth of White river, to 12 leagues below this town, and in width from the river on the east, 40 leagues, and on the west 30 leagues.
The grant of the land is said to have been made to Monsieur De Vincennes, a captain in the French army, and the founder of the colony which bears his name, for the use of the French settlers, and although the instrument of conveyance (if there ever was one in writing) is lost, the fact is ascertained not only by the testimony of all the old French inhabitants, but is completely authenticated by a clause in a subsequent deed, made by the Indians to the Wabash Company in the year 1775, in which the bounds of the tract before granted to the French are laid down, for the purpose of excepting it from the sale then about to be made. An extract from the said deed, which is on record here, is en-
- ↑ Greenville treaty, negotiated by Wayne Aug. 3, 1795 fixed the boundary beginning at the mouth of the Cuyahoga up that stream to the Tuscarawas branch of the Muskingum down it to Fort Lawrence, west to Loramie's store on the headwaters of the Miami; thence to Fort Recovery, thence by direct line to the Ohio opposite the mouth of the Kentucky. Besides this there were 16 separate reservations around posts and portages in the Indian country. State Papers, Indian Affairs, I, 562
