State of North Carolina Land Grant.: N.C. GOVERNOR AND PATRIOT SAMUEL ASHE

Governor Samuel Ashe. State of North Carolina Land Grant. [North Carolina]: 1796. Partly-printed vellum document. 13.25 x 13.5 in. Signed "Sam. Ashe." July 21, 1796. Accompanied by a survey, attached with original seal, 12 x 14.5 in., dated June 25, 1796, which features a small hand-drawn plot of Cathcart's land grant, signed J. Williams, D.S. Partial tears and losses at fold lines, heavy toning at folds. Overall staining, foxing.

Samuel Ashe studied law and was named Assistant Attorney for the Crown in the Wilmington district of the colony. He became involved in the revolutionary movement and he was one of the first prominent men to become a zealous patriot, organizing revolutionary groups as early as 1774, when the colonial governor refused to convene the legislature. He served in the North Carolina Provincial Congress and as a member of the North Carolina militia. In 1776, Ashe served as president of the Council of Safety, the state's executive authority. He was appointed to the committee that drafted the first North Carolina Constitution, and in 1776 he was elected to the new North Carolina Senate and was elected its first speaker. He was the ninth Governor of North Carolina from 1795 to 1798. This is Grant No. 225 whereby the State of North Carolina, for the "sum of Fifty Shillings for every Hundred Acres hereby Granted, paid into our Treasury…do Give and Grant unto…William Cathcart a Tract of Land containing Forty nine thousand nine hundred and twenty acres, lying and being in our County of Buncombe." Asheville, in Buncombe County, was named for Samuel Ashe. – NCPedia. This grant was part of the land speculation in North Carolina, documented in the UNC-Asheville's John Brown Land Speculation Collection. William Cathcart was one of the investors working with John Brown to amass property after the price was set at 50 shillings per 100 acres, which resulted in a flood of land investors in Western North Carolina.