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T H E   S A V A G E   L A N D   G R A N T

BASED on their service during the French and Indian War, Virginia Governor Robert Dinwiddie granted over 27,000 acres to Captain John Savage and fifty-nine other soldiers. This grant became known as the Savage Land Grant. The grant’s boundary ran along the Virginia (now West Virginian) side of the Ohio River, beginning at the mouth of Catletts Creek (present-day site Catlettsburgs, Kentucky), passed the mouth of the Big Sandy River, where it turned up that river to the Forks of the Big Sandy (near present-day Fort Gay, West Virginia, and Louisa, Kentucky). From the mouth of the Big Sandy the grant continued up the Ohio River, passing the mouth of the Guyandotte River to Greenbottom. captain Savage never settled on his land, nor did most of the other soldiers. In fact, many of them sold their land, others lost their grants because they did not make the required improvements to their property, and a few forfeited their grant for the non-payment of the taxes.      When legal entanglements arose between some the grantees or their heirs, a suit was brought before the chancery court at Staunton, Virginia. The court empanelled a five-member commission to divide and evaluate the grant. The commission hired Edward Tupper to conduct a survey. Tupper completed his work in 1814. He divided the grant into sixty-one parcels of approximately 460 acres each, beginning with Lot Number 1 at near Louisa, Kentucky, and terminating with Lot 61 near the Guyandotte River. In 1819 the court upheld the partition of the Savage Grant.       This exhibit covers the part of the Savage Land Grant along the Big Sandy River and the Ohio River, on which the West Virginia communities of Huntington, Kenova, Ceredo and Guyandotte, now reside.

	Created and maintained by Lisle Brown, Curator of Special Collections, and Jack Dickinson, Blake Library Bibliographer. © 2012, Special Collections, Marshall University speccoll@marshall.edu