Jun 25, 2024 - Sale 2674

Sale 2674 - Lot 52

Price Realized: $ 1,375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
BEGINNING SURVEY OF CHICKASAW, CREEK, AND CHEROKEE COUNTRY HAWKINS, BENJAMIN. Autograph Letter Signed, as General Superintendent of Indian Affairs, to Colonel David Henley, explaining that delays [to survey mission] are due to injured horses, describing his efforts to correct the problem, and anticipating that work would begin tomorrow. 1¼ pages, 4to, with integral address leaf (now detached), addressed in holograph; short closed separations at folds, faint scattered foxing. "Camp near Nashville," 22 May 1797
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In full: "General [James] Winchester arrived here yesterday and we shall proceed on tomorrow to the dividing ridge between this and Duck River. We have been a little unfortunate in our journey, the want of information in parking horses, and adjusting the parks, has retarded us some, and some of our horses are so damaged as to be unfit for present use. We have in consequence been under the necessity of ordering some more horses to be purchased. We have also found it necessary to purchase shoes for the infantry, and to have a thorough repair of every thing. The horses unfit for use will be taken care of, three of them I have sent to Tellico [Blockhouse] by two Indians, and the remainder will be sent on to your care. There are no apparent difficulties in our way now, except what may arise from cane brakes, and untravellable woods. General [Andrew] Pickins presents his respects."
On May 21, 1797, Hawkins wrote to the Chickasaw chiefs to explain why he had come to the area: "I am now here for the purpose of ascertaining and marking the boundary line between the Indian nations and the United States. I shall finish the Cherokee and Creek lines first, and then yours . . . " (Letters of Benjamin Hawkins: 1796-1806, vol. IX, [Savannah: Georgia Historical Society, 1916], 176).