Recently heard a little bit about this in a speech at my brother's high school graduation. Apparently my home town was first settled/colonized/farmed when it was given to revolutionary soldiers because it was part of something called "depreciation lands." From what I can see online it was a specific tract of land in Pennsylvania, but I couldn't really work out any details.
It sounds as though you have an interesting local history project on your hands.
Not sure about the use of "depreciation". But it might be possible the story is true, that it was given to some Revolutionary War veterans in return for their services. However, it's also quite possible that it was not the Revolutionary War but the French and Indian War. Some of those veterans were definitely promised land, some of it in Pennsylvania - George Washington being one of them. And they were angry when the Proclamation of 1763 denied them- another one of the grievances that led to the Revolutionary War.
If land was granted to them after the Revolutionary War, it was likely to have been done on a case-by-case basis. There was very little in the way of bureaucracy in the early US, and so no Veteran's Administration. If you were a veteran of the War, you ( and /or your family) actually would work up a Memorial to Congress, documenting your service with affidavits from other soldiers, pay records, and other evidence. Your Congressman would then be part of a committee to consider it, the committee would vote to accept or deny, then it would go to a vote in the House, etc. It seems ridiculously slow and cumbersome, but a great number of these Memorials were actually processed and pensions granted. This created a record, and that has been a great blessing to geneologists. If someone wants to belong to the Daughters of the American Revolution and wants evidence of an ancestor fighting on the non-British side, it often provides an easy way to find it.
The Library of Congress has put records of the early Congress online, some here. Searching at their site with a couple of names and places might turn up the actual Memorials. However, this is a question that would have been eagerly asked by local history buffs from the 1830's onward and so likely it's already been answered. If you really wanted to save yourself some time, I would ring up or visit the local historical society. They will likely have only a few volunteers, likely only be open a few days a week, but almost certainly they have a file on this, perhaps also a volunteer who knows all about it. Possibly, if they maintain any sort of museum, they have a whole exhibit.
If, by the way, you come up something you might post it here. I mean, you would be a historian answering a question.