RESOLUTION REGARDING VIRGINIA’S MILITARY DISTRICT IN KENTUCKY
(RESERVED FOR REVOLUTIONARY WAR VETERANS, HEIRS, OR ASSIGNS)
Note: This resolution is mentioned in Section III of “Land Law 1779 (B)” on this website.
Saturday the 19th of December, 1778.
Mr. Lyne from the committee to whom the memorial of the general and field officers was referred, reported that the committee had, according to order, had the same under their consideration, and had agreed upon a report and come to several resolutions thereupon, which he read in his place, and afterwards delivered in at the clerks table where the same were again read, and are as followeth, viz.
RESOLVED, That it is the opinion of this committee, that a certain tract of country to be bounded by the Green river and a south east course from the head thereof to the Cumberland mountains, with the said mountains to the Carolina line, with the Carolina line to the Cherokee or Tennessee river, with the said river to the Ohio river, and with the Ohio river to the said Green river, ought to be reserved for supplying the officers and soldiers in the Virginia line with the respective proportions of land which have been or may be assigned to them by the general assembly, saving and reserving the land granted to Richard Henderson and company, and their legal rights to such persons as have heretofore actually located lands and settled thereon within the bounds aforesaid.
RESOLVED, That it is the opinion of this committee that the said officers and soldiers, or any of them, may be at liberty to locate their proportions of land on any other vacant and ungranted lands within this commonwealth.
RESOLVED, That it is the opinion of this committee, that the allowance of two hundred acres of land over and above the continental bounty, be given to all the soldiers in the Virginia line, who have heretofore enlisted or shall hereafter enlist for the term of three years of during the war.
RESOLVED, That it is the opinion of this committee, that the several commissioned and non-commissioned officers in the Virginia line ought to have their allowance of lands increased in the same proportion as that of the soldiers are by the preceeding (sic) resolution. And whereas no provision hath been hitherto made for the general officers:
RESOLVED, That such general officers who were inhabitants of this state, be allowed the following proportions of land, upon the same terms and under the same restricts with the lands engaged to the officers and soldiers raised in this commonwealth, that is to say, to the commander in chief ….. acres, to every major general …….acres, and to every brigadier general …acres.
The first resolution being read a second time, was, upon the question put thereupon, agreed to by the house. Ordered, that Mr. G. Mason do carry the same to the senate and desire their concurrence. The second, third, fourth and fifth of the said resolutions, being read a second time, were ordered to lie on the table.
[MS. Journal of the House of Delegates of October 1778, six pages from the end—the volume not being paged.]
REF: “The Statutes at Large being a Collection of all the Laws of Virginia”, Vol. X, by William Waller Hening, page 55.