In 1785 lands of the Northwest Territory were offered for sale to the public. By 1800 four land offices were established and sales from the Zanesville office, which included tracts originally reserved for the Marietta and Steubenville offices and, more importantly, parts of the United States Military District, reserved for veterans of the Revolutionary War, form the basis of this volume. In addition, this volume also includes records from the Steubenville office for the period 1820-1840, the first twenty years of sales records having already been published.
In tabular format this volume has a complete list of 22,770 persons who bought land in central and east central Ohio between 1800 and 1840. Data includes the name of the purchaser (in alphabetical order), date of purchase, place of residence at the time of purchase, and the range, township, and section of the purchased land, thus enabling the researcher to ascertain the exact location of the ancestor's land see also Items 480 and 481).