my g-grandpa hart might not have been a visionary like finster or eddie martin, but he had his own special mix of preacher and artist --- born in 1857, died a hundred years later when i was eight years old --- i am glad our paths at least crossed in real time --- even if we never actually conversed, i feel like i know him, from old photographs, my grandma's reminiscences of their conversations, and most of all from his writing, which i am now tasked with preserving ---
i don't remember any mention of this year marking the bicentennial of the muscogee signing away title to over four million acres of land between the ocmulgee and flint rivers in the treaty of indian springs, which was signed in early january 1821 --- the territory was quickly organized into five large counties, and in may the legislature authorized the state's fourth land lottery to distribute the land to new white settlers --- the counties were surveyed into land districts “nine miles square, as near as practicable,” and each district was surveyed into land lots of 202½ acres, or a little over half mile square, a process that took most of that summer and fall to complete --- by the end of the year, the lottery was complete and white settlers were pouring into what is now the city of atlanta ---
all of the survey field notebooks are online --- this page is from the 17th district survey, which began on 18 july 1821 just a few hundred feet south of the intersection of virginia ave and rosedale drive in va-highland
