18th c. Georgia Land Grant Documents

Updated August 6, 2026

Estimate: 100 / 1000 1794, Georgia, Montgomery county. Three land grant documents, partially printed and completed in manuscript, with manuscript plats and seals attached. Approximately 12" x 12", with smaller sheets containing the plat. ALL SIGNED BY GOVERNOR GEORGE MATHEWS. The documents each grant 1,000 acres of land in Montgomery County to David McCormick. The grants retain the attached seals of the State of Georgia. Land grants of this kind were issued under Georgia’s early headright system, through which the state distributed frontier lands to encourage settlement following the American Revolution. Such grants were typically awarded to heads of households who applied for land warrants and, in some cases, to Revolutionary War veterans or individuals entitled to land through military service. Grants of this scale were often associated with settlers or veterans establishing claims on Georgia’s expanding frontier. Mt. Vernon, the county seat of Montgomery County, GA, was first settled in 1795, just after these grants were issued. Located in the eastern part of Georgia, between Savannah and Macon, this area of Georgia was dangerous and unsettled frontier land heavily involved in violent conflicts between settlers and the Lower Creek Nation. George Mathews (1739–1812) was a Revolutionary War officer who rose to the rank of brigadier general and later served two terms as governor of Georgia (1787–1788 and 1793–1796). His second administration coincided with the controversial Yazoo Land Fraud, in which vast western lands were sold to speculators through a legislature later exposed as heavily bribed; although Mathews himself was not proven to have taken part in the corruption, he signed the legislation authorizing the sale. Following the scandal, he moved to the Mississippi territory. Condition: Numerous tears and chips, along with several crude tape repairs, lot sold as-is.

Register & bid on this lot at Bidspirit →

More lots in this auction

• [African Americana] Underground Railroad
• Twain's Life on the Mississippi
• Civil War Letters of William Clark
• [Important American Provenance] Plutarch
• William McKinley Signed Document
• Newtonian Philosophy, 1735
• 1620, Jesuit History
• Pair of Rare Plays, Johnson & Dryden

See all lots in 1066: Rare Books & Bookworm, ONLINE-ONLY Sale →