The Twelve Mile Square Reservation was a tract of land in Ohio, located in Lucas and Wood counties, which was ceded by Indians to the United States of America in the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. This land was considered to be of strategic importance by the United States government, and was subsequently surveyed in a unique manner different from the surrounding land. Lots were sold, or granted, to settlers who had settled around Fort Miami during the French and British occupation of the region. The United States government wished to give legal title to these settlers and sell the rest of the land.
To accomplish this, Congress arranged for a special indiscriminate location survey for the reserve on March 3, 1805. The Twelve Mile Square Reservation in Ohio was divided into four townships of six miles each, with the southwest township being number one (1), the northwest number two (2), the northeast number three (3), and the southeast number four (4). Each township was further subdivided into thirty six (36) one (1) square-mile sections. The sections were numbered boustrophedonically, which means the numbering was done in a zigzag pattern, back and forth. The tract had no ranges, and was an original survey, unrelated to later 1821 Congress Lands surveys that surrounded the reserve, known as North and East of First Principal Meridian.
In 1807, Congress passed a law that confirmed every person in possession of a tract of land, settled and improved by them or someone under whom they claimed the right to its occupancy, before July 1, 1796, to be entitled to a land patent for an estate of inheritance in fee simple. In 1816, under the Act of 1816, Joseph Wampler surveyed the riverfront into long lots of about 160 acres each, officially called "River Tracts," numbered 1 to 93. The private claims of the British and French era settlers were surveyed separately from the main survey, and the partial sections left after the River Tracts were called "Fractional Sections." The Act of 1816 set aside section sixteen (16) of each township as School Lands for the benefit of schools in each township. Town lots in Perrysburg were also laid out in 1816, providing less than two (2) sections of land in lots less than quarter (1/4) acre each.