While the French and British occupied the region, many white people settled near the fort. The United States wished to give legal title to these people, and sell the rest of the tract. To accomplish this, on March 3, 1805, Congress arranged for a special indiscriminate location survey for the reserve. Deputy surveyor Elias Glover subdivided the tract into four townships of six miles (10 km) square each in 1805, with the southwest township being number one, the northwest number two, the northeast number three, and the southeast number four. The tract has no ranges, and is an original survey, unrelated to later 1821
Congress Lands surveys that surround the reserve, known as
North and East of First Principal Meridian. In 1807,
Congress directed that every person in the actual possession of any tract of land, in his own right, and settled, occupied and improved by him prior to the first day of July, 1796, or by some other person under whom he claimed the right to its occupancy or possession, should be confirmed in his title as an estate of inheritance in
fee simple, and be entitled to a
land patent for it. Each township was subdivided into 36 sections numbered
boustrophedonically, as established by the Act of May 18, 1796. Under the Act of 1816, Joseph Wampler surveyed the riverfront into long lots of about each, numbered 1 to 93, and officially called "River Tracts". The private claims of the British and French era settlers were surveyed in 1817 by deputy surveyor S. Carpenter. The partial sections left after the River Tracts were called "Fractional Sections". The Act of 1816 set aside section 16 of each township as
School Lands for benefit of schools in each township. These sections were eventually sold. Town lots in Perrysburg were also laid out in 1816, providing less than two sections of land in lots less than each. Land sales were through the
Wooster Land Office in the
Canton Land District. ==Modern times==