PRESIDENT ANDREW JACKSON - LAND GRANT SIGNED 06/01/1831 CO-SIGNED BY: ELIJAH HAYWARD - HFSID 5670

ANDREW JACKSON
1831 land grant, signed by Jackson, granting 80 acres of land near Cahaba, Alabama
Land grant signed "Andrew Jackson" as President, 1 page, 15½x9½. On vellum. Washington, DC, June 5, 1831. Countersigned: "Elijah Hayward" as Commissioner of the General Land Office. This land grant, signed by Jackson, grants 80.745 acres of land near Cahaba, Alabama, to one Benjamin J Tarver of Dallas County. The Land Act of April 24, 1820 abolished the credit system that enabled settlers to make deferred payment on their land and reduced the per acre purchase price from $2 to $1.25 with the entire amount to be paid at the time of purchase. The smallest purchasable unit of land was fixed at 80 acres. Alabama became the 22nd state on December 14, 1819 and was entered as a free state. Issues of granting land would eventually haunt Jackson, because the excessive speculation and abuses associated with it during his two terms, resulted in Jackson's Specie Circular in 1837. The circular required government agencies to accept only gold and silver for payment for public lands. The order shocked the Western states because speculators there had been buying land with "cheap" paper money. The circular ended land speculation, but inflationary conditions at the end of Jackson's presidency brought on the economic panic that struck shortly before his term ended. Lightly toned, stained soiled and creased. Grant has been folded two times vertically and unfolded. Otherwise, fine condition.