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Land Office Military Warrant, No. 795, Issued to Moses Wade, 12 June 1783.

To encourage its soldiers to enlist for longer terms of military service during the American Revolution, Virginia offered a reward, or bounty. All those who agreed to serve for three years or until the end of the war in the new nation's Continental Line or in one of the state's own regiments were to receive a parcel of land. The amount of land a veteran or his heirs received depended on the soldier's rank and length of service. In this case, the Virginia Land Office issued a warrant for one hundred acres of western land to Moses Wade for his service in the "Virginia Continental line." The warrants were often assigned or sold to others before being redeemed, as in fact happened with Moses Wade's warrant.

The Library acquired the Moses Wade warrant as part of the Richard Clough Anderson-Allen Latham Collection of personal papers, purchased to augment the information in the Land Office and other record groups. Richard C. Anderson, with headquarters near Louisville, had served as the principal surveyor of bounty lands in Ohio and Kentucky until 1819. His son-in-law, Allen Latham, arrived in Chillicothe about 1816 and thereafter established an agency to handle claims for lands in Ohio. The approximately twenty-five hundred items in the collection, including about one hundred forty warrants, arrived in two lots in 1912 and 1950. The collection also contains correspondence, court records, and surveys.

Location: Richard Clough Anderson-Allen Latham Collection, 1771-1887, Box 11, Folder 1, Acc. 23634d