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The Georgia Land Lottery
The Cherokee Land Lottery 
In 1832, the state of Georgia divided what was formerly the Cherokee Nation into four Sections, each of which had about 20 Districts. Each District was then divided into a grid of either 40-acre Gold Lots or 160-acre Land Lots. What is now Cherokee County was in the Second Section, and what is now Bartow County was in the Third Section.
Cherokee Lottery Map (1832)

Map courtesy of Ed Gordon

1832 Cherokee lottery map.jpg
Abraham Prim Land Grant.jpg
The Reinhardt University Archives holds a collection of original Georgia Lottery land grants, plats, and deeds, many belonging to the Pine Log Mountain area. This is an original 1832 Land Grant issued by the state of Georgia to Abraham Prim for Land Lot 218 in the Sixth District of the Third Section. The document is dated 1843, but the lot was awarded in 1832. This is Land Lot 218, Third Section, Sixth District, on the Bartow County side of the Salacoa Valley north of Pine Log Mountain.
Abraham Prim Land Lottery Deed (1843). 

Courtesy Reinhardt University Archives.

This original plat for Abraham Prim’s land lot shows the parameters for his 160 acres in the Salacoa Valley. The squiggly line across the plat is Pine Log Creek. The surveyors also described the types of trees as the corners of the lot. Here you see Paw Paw, Pine, Cedar, and Dogwood. Abraham Prim was what was known as a “Fortunate Drawer.” For a fee of $18, citizens of Georgia could enter a lottery in which slips of paper with the land lot numbers were mixed up in a wooden barrel, and entrants would draw a slip with either a land lot or nothing.
 
Abraham Land Lottery Plat. 

Courtesy Reinhardt University Library

Abraham Prim land plat.jpg
Pine Log land lots.jpg
On this map of the 6th District of the 3rd Section of the Georgia Land Lottery, we have highlighted Abraham Prim’s lot 218.  The lots with circles are lots of Cherokee improvements. There were many Cherokee homes and farms in this area near the village of Pine Log.
 
Land Lottery Map: 6th District of the 3rd Section

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