Person:Alexander Shults (1)

Alexander Preston Shults received a state land grant of 1,000 acres and another of 4,000 acres in the early 1840s. This is the largest grant known to this author in Sevier County. It is not clear to this author upon what basis the grants were made. Perhaps it was because his grandfather had participated in the Revolutionary War and his father in the War of 1812. The land was bounded by the East Prong of the Pigeon River, Webb's Creek, the Cocke/Sevier County line, and a line well up on the slope of the Western escarpment of the Smoky Mountains. Shortly after 1870, Alexander Preston moved to Grainger County where the farm land was much better and where some of his offspring lived. From historical documents, he had difficulty in selling all of his Sevier County land. William Williams (1843-1917) bought 600 acres from him at one dollar per acre. The sales receipt, which my mother, Mamie Williams Davenport (1911-), had in her possession in the 1970s was a simple statement of the acreage and selling price, handwritten on simple ruled notepad paper. The Williams acreage was on the East side of the Shults land grant, bounded by the original line on the mountain, the Cocke/Sevier county line, Dunn's Creek, and a line well down into Rocky Flats. See also state land grant to Phillip S. Shults.