These were mostly refugees from the Revolution, who had been taken in by a swindling land company.

They were utterly unsuited to life in the wilderness, being gentlemen, small tradesmen, lawyers, and the like.

Unable to grapple with the wild life into which they found themselves plunged, they sank into shiftless poverty, not one in fifty showing industry and capacity to succeed.
Congress took pity upon them and granted them twenty-four thousand acres in Scioto County, the tract being known as the French grant; but no gift of wild land was able to insure their prosperity.

By degrees they were absorbed into the neighboring communities, a few succeeding, most ending their lives in abject failure.

[Footnote: Atwater, p.