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CEDED TO THE UNITED STATES - When the Articles of Confederation were referred to the several colonies in 1778, New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland refused to ratify on account of the territorial claims of Virginia, and other colonies. the first two eventually concurred, but Maryland remained firm.  The first two eventually concurred, but Maryland remained firm.  The Virginia leaders, realizing that sacrifices had to be made to establish the Union, followed the example of representatives of other colonies, and proposed a cession to the general government of all its unoccupied territory.  After long negotiations, the cession of Illinois was made March 1, 1784, and the territory of Jackson county passed under the dominion of the United States.  By that time the region north and northwest of the Ohio had come to be regarded as a veritable paradise, and traders, trappers, hunters, hermits and squatters were quietly entering it by hundreds, notwithstanding the hostility of the Indians, and the necessity for establishing a government in the territory northwest of the Ohio became imperative.  Accordingly, the famous Ordinance, whose provisions are known to all, was approved July 13, 1787.  Events now began to crowd.  The contract with the Ohio Company was formally signed Oct. 27, 1787.  The first settlers sent out by this company landed at the mouth of the Muskingum April 7, 1788, and established Marietta.  The chief executive of the Northwest Territory, Governor Arthur St. Clair, arrived soon after, and the territorial government was installed July 17, 1788.  The first law passed, "an act to establish and regulate the militia," was published at Marietta July 25, 1788.  Another important event was the erection of the County of Washington, July 26, 1788, to include all the territory east of the Scioto and Cuyahoga rivers.  It was while Jackson county was included in Washington county that the first known settler took up his abode in it.