There is no better way to prepare for Veterans Day than to attend the Cranberry Township Historical Society's program on the Depreciation Lands and the Depreciation Lands Museum. On November 1, 2009 at the Cranberry Township Municipal Building’s Council Chambers at 2:00 pm, Depreciation Lands Museum member Sue Stanny will talk about the Lands, their importance in the development of Western Pennsylvania, and about the museum.
The Commonwealth legislature passed an Act on 12 March 1783 that worked off of earlier Acts, and called for the division of lands purchased from the Indians into two large sections called The Depreciation and Donation Lands. The Depreciation Lands consisted of 720,000 acres of land in western Pennsylvania to compensate its Revolutionary War soldiers for their services by way of Certificates of Depreciation, since the local currency had depreciated greatly during the war. The Depreciation Lands area included all of the North Hills of Pittsburgh, to a line 4 1/2 miles north of the present city of Butler, thereby, also encompassing parts of present day Butler (Cranberry Township), Allegheny, Beaver, Lawrence and Armstrong Counties. An indication of how the currency depreciated, the Act of 3 April 1781 set up scales of depreciation for the years 1777-1781 as compared with silver and gold; in July 1777 the scale was 3:1; in 1778 it was 6:1; in 1779 it was 41½:l; and in 1780 it was 75:1.
Please come and learn about the history of the land where your house sits today and salute a soldier from the revolutionary war. Light refreshments will be served and the Program is free to the Public.
Note that the original map does not contain the red square. We have added it to show the location of Cranberry Township.
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