from Atlas of Madison Co. Ohio by J.A. Caldwell, Condit, Ohio (1875)
It will be observed in the Virginia Military Districts in Ohio, which comprise the lands between the Sciota [sic] and Little Miami rivers, that when the State of Virginia, in 1783, ceded to the United States all her right of soil and jurisdiction to all the tract of country she then claimed north-west of the Ohio river, it was provided that the Virginia troops of the Continental establishment should be paid their legal bounties from these lands, (and here it may not be amiss to define these land denominations). The United States Military Lands were so called from the fact that they were appropriated by an act of Congress in 1796, to satisfy certain claims of the officers and soldiers of the Revolution. The patent to the soldiers or purchasers of these lands, as well as of all other Ohio lands, is derived from the general government. This district was not surveyed into ranges and townships, or any regular form, and hence the irregularity in the shape of the townships as established by the county commissioners for civil purposes; but any individual holding a Virginia Military Land warrant might locate it wherever he desired within the district, and in such shape as he pleased, wherever the land had not been previously located.
In consequence of this want of regular original surveys, the irrgularities with which many locations were made, and the consequent interference and encroachments of some locations upon others, far more uncertainty and litigation has arisen relative to lines and titles in this district than all the regularly surveyed districts. In conveyancing the lands in this district, they are not designated by sections or ranges, as are shown by original surveys and the numbers thereon, which will be observed by turning to the township maps which accompanies this work.