Brookville Land Office 1820 - 1825
The building above served as the Federal Land Office in Brookville between 1820 and 1825. After which, the Land Office was moved to Indianapolis. The old Brookville Land Office was torn down in October of 1913.  A Historic Marker at 766 Main St., Brookville, marks the site of the old Land Office. Prior to 1820, the Federal Land Office for this region was located in Cincinnati, Ohio. 

The greater portion of central Indiana was acquired from the Delaware Indians by Wm. Henry Harrison on Oct.6th,1818 and is referred to as the new purchase. A portion of this land was surveyed in 1819-1820 and put up for sale at the new Federal Land Office in Brookville, IN in August of 1820.

The illustration on the left is a copy of the original list of public lands advertised for sale. Today, and perhaps even at that time, the average person could not visualize the area and locations of the land sections being offered for sale by the information provided on this listing. For this reason, the map below is presented.

It is interesting to speculate how difficult it might have been at that time to go out into this territory and find the quarter section or half section of land that you purchased.
The light orange area in the map above represents the lands put up for sale at the Brookville Federal Land Office. Each small square represents a section of land one mile square.
Records of sales clearly indicate that a middle man or a land speculator who understood the procedures was involved in many of these transactions. The land speculator, for example, might buy a 1 sq. mile section of land and then sub-divide it into 1/4 sections of 160 acres each for resale to a buyer unfamiliar with these proceedings at a slightly higher price. To facilitate this, and to speed up sales, the Federal Government began to sell 1/4 section parcels. A second inconvenience , existed in that the land had to be paid for in cash payments, and there was one slight problem with that. The Federal Government at that time did not print paper money. Paper money was printed by individual State Banks and by independent banking institutions. Potential settlers arrived at the Brookville Land Office with a hodge-podge assortment of Eastern Bank Notes, some of which were of little or no value. The Land Office maintained a list of acceptable paper currency and another middle man position was created. That of exchanging your paper currency for notes acceptable to the Federal list. This of course was done at a rate of exchange plus a slight exchange fee.  Nevertheless sales were brisk and in a short time Wetzel's Trace became the principal route of settlers to the new State Capitol which was named Indianapolis in 1825.
Note: Lazarus Noble, a brother of James and Noah, died at the home of David Mount in Metamora in 1825 while he was moving the United States Land Office, in three large wagons from Brookville to Indianapolis.

-R.P. Baudendistel