Refugee Tract
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REFUGEE LANDS.---The history of what is known as the Refugee lands is somewhat confused. Historians have described it variously as to its extent and number of acres. In some statements its length from west to east has been given at eighteen miles, while others make it double that, and more. In one statement the length was given at sixty miles. Without attempting to reconcile these discrepancies, it may be stated, generally, that the tract is supposed to have contained one hundred thousand acres, and that it was a narrow strip of four and a half miles in width, and extended from the Scioto River, east, in a due line. Upon the hypothesis that the tract contained one hundred thousand acres, that would give it an eastern extension of near fifty miles, if its width was four and a half miles, which is probably nearly correct. Two miles of this strip belongs to Fairfield county, running along the northern margins of Violet, Liberty and Walnut townships. The other portion of it, of the width of two and a half miles, lies over the line within the county of Licking, corresponding with the width of Fairfield.
The history of this tract of land is as follows: During the Revolutionary war, there were certain men of Canada and Nova Scotia, who sympathized with, and rendered aid to the United States, some of them joining the American Army. For this lack of loyalty to the crown of Great Britain, that government confiscated their possessions. For their co-operation with the colonists, in their struggle for independence, the government of the United States caused this strip of land to be surveyed and set apart for this use.
To what extent they entered upon it, is not known; but the remainder was subsequently sectioned off and sold as Congress land.
1883 HISTORY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY homepages.rootsweb.com/~tfisher/fphpart3chap6.htm
