PRESIDENT ANDREW JACKSON - MANUSCRIPT DOCUMENT SIGNED 09/28/1830 - HFSID 285928

ANDREW JACKSON
His Presidential signature on an 1830 land grant awarded to two lieutenants for military service and assigned by them to someone else
Manuscript DS: "Andrew Jackson" as President, 1 page, 25¼x16. Washington, 1830 September 28. On vellum. Countersigned: "Jno. M. Moore" as Acting Commissioner of the General Land Office. In part: "Know Ye that in consideration of Military Service performed William Holt & William Christian Lieutenants for three years to the United States in the Virginia Line, on Continental Establishment, and in pursuance of the Act of the Congress of the United States passed on the 10th day of August, in the Year 1790, entitled 'An act to enable the officers and Soldiers of the Virginia Line on Continental Establishment, to obtain Titles to certain lands lying northwest of the river Ohio between the Little Miami & Sciota;' and other Acts of the said Congress amendatory of the said act, There is granted by the United States unto Walter Dun assignee of John & Mathew Hobson who were assignees of said William Holt, said Walter Dun being also the assignee of Samuel H. Saunders attorney in fact of said William Christian, a certain Tract of land containing Eighty two acres situate between the Little Miami & Sciota Rivers northwest of the River Ohio...." An 1834 hand-drawn map of the area has been penned on verso. Issues of land settlement were very much a part of Andrew Jackson's administration. Land bounties such as the one offered here were issued to reward military service in past wars, encourage enlistment in pending wars and to aid special groups. The Treaty of Greenville, signed August 3, 1795, with provisions dictated by General Anthony Wayne to the chiefs of the several tribes in the Ohio valley, opened part of the Old Northwest to settlement. Virginia was one of four military tracts created by the government. VIRGINIA GAVE MORE GENEROUS BOUNTIES THAN ANY OTHER COLONY OR STATE, AND A SPECIAL VIRGINIA MILITARY DISTRICT WAS RESERVED NORTH OF THE OHIO TO FULFILL THESE GRANTS. Most of the soldiers or their heirs refused to move to these tracts to take up their claims because they were too far from zones of settlement. Instead they sold their warrants or locations to speculators for prices as low as ten cents an acre. In the Virginia tract alone, over one million acres was owned by 24 people. The issuance of land grants, the speculation that resulted from them and the subsequent abuses associated with speculation resulted in Jackson's Specie Circular in 1837. This policy required government agencies to accept only gold and silver in payment for public lands. The order shocked the West because speculators there had been buying land with "cheap" paper money. The circular helped end land speculation. But prices, interest rates and wages continued to rise. Inflation, over-expansion of business and over-investment in public improvements brought on a panic that struck shortly before Jackson left office. Land Grants signed by Presidents are rare in full manuscript form. Folds, vertical fold touches the "w" in Andrew. Lightly yellowed, erased pencil notes at lower left and bottom blank margins. ¾-inch vertical separation at upper blank mid-vertical fold. Fine condition, with large, bold 6¾-inch signature of the seventh U.S. President.