Receipts

File — Box: SC1800-1849.001, Folder: 4150.01

Scope and Contents

From the Collection: The collection contains six receipts concerning Andrew Jackson's farm, Melton's Bluff, on the Tennessee River in Alabama. Jackson purchased the land with his partner John Hutchings from David Melton, son of the original owner John Melton and his Cherokee wife. They farmed Melton's Bluff until its sale in 1827. At one point, Jackson and another partner, General John Coffey, surveyed the area and sold lots in the short-lived town of Marathon. Unfortunately the venture never materialized and today the town of Marathon (Melton's Bluff) is listed as having existed from 1818 to 1850, as the county seat of Lawrence County in The Alabama Ghost Town Project. Its current status is listed as 'barren' meaning that the site no longer has any trace of civilization, and has either been destroyed, covered with water, or has reverted back to empty land. Melton's Bluff later became part of General Joe Wheeler's plantation.

The receipts concern various purchases and payments by Massey to outfit and work the property, for items such as flower (flour), crocks, salt, and whiskey. It is interesting to note that although they owned slaves and slaves worked the fields and farm at Melton's Bluff for Jackson and Hutchings, they did not completely rely on slave labor to harvest the cotton crop as one of the 1818 receipts is to Jayson Parmertree for $1.50 for picking one hundred-fifty pounds of cotton at $1.00 per hundred and another to William Davis for $11.48 for picking eleven hundred and eighty-six pounds and for making a door.