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Washington City
Washington City
April 29th 1824
Sir,
Your two letters under date of 15th and 28th of the present month, I received last evening, out of your own hand.
I disclaim having had any object in writing the letter you mention, to the Chairman of the Land Committee in the Senate, other than to promote the establishment of a Surveyor's ofice in Arkansas, by a statement of facts notoriously true, and utterly disclaim any intention by that letter of promoting the views of your inveterate enemies as you state.
Much of the prairie, and of the poor lands near Red River, and upon, and near the Wachitau, extending nearly to the Arkansas is surveyed, some of which for Townships together, are as poor lands as any in the Territory, which is partly evidenced by the quantity (almost none) sold at the public sales last fall when there was persons in the country, who wished to purchase if they could have found good lands within the country then offered for sale. But much of these surveyed lands are so poor that in many Townships it is not probable a section will be sold in less than 20 or 30 years, if then. And such too is part of the lands surveyed last year between Wachitau and Red River, and so is a portion of the surveyed country between Cadron and post of Arkansas, the way the road goes, and so is much of the country near the lower or eastern Cherokee boundary as surveyed to the East of it, except a small extent near the principal rivers. Parts of all of which I have seen myself and know to be as poor as any in the country, though the rich cane lands on Red River from Little River down nearly to long prairie and the rich cane lands on Arkansas from about 15 miles below Little Rock to within about eight miles of post of Arkansas and the Oil troft and some other rich bottoms on white river and other rich lands in other places has not been surveyed.
I have examined and tried to examine some of the lines and corners myself and found them so badly marked as to be difficult or impossible to follow them without a compass, and the marks of the corners not plain enough to be distinguished. But few corners could now be found in or near the prairie between Cadron and post of Arkansas and in other parts of the surveyed land it is very difficult to distinguish what the marks at the corners are. From the description I have given you I hope you will be able to ascertain the Townships and districts which I am not prepared to describe by given names or numbers as I had expected to have had these or such questions to have answered.
My information as to surveying having been badly done, is in part from my own knowledge and in part from what is said by every disinterested person I have ever heard speak on the subject in Arkansas where it has been an object of very General conversation and I have derived my information of poor lands being surveyed and rich lands left unsurveyed in the same way a considerable part of it from my own knowledge and observation; that my information has not been derived from Mr. William Russell as you seem to suspect, nor do I recollect to have heard him say much on the subject until we were called upon to give the information within our knowledge to the land committee and there he did not even advise that our letter should embrace any other of the facts within our knowledge on the subject of the surveying than those calculated to promote the object of establishing the surveyor's office; and this was the view and object of each of those whose names are to that letter.
That much of the surveying was done by persons not responsible and for small prices &c I was disposed to say and believe from a knowledge of the large contracts given to Mr. Henry W. Conway, Mr. James Conway, Mr. Thomas Rector, Mr. McPherson, &c some of whom never surveyed a single Township of their contracts (and the others but small proportion of theirs) themselves, but had the work done by other persons for very small prices; that those who did most of the work were not bound or responsible to the Government; nor were the prices they received sufficient to justify the surveying the cane or rich lands of the country or do the work permenantly well, according to what those who did the work say themselves they were promised for doing it.
The only two deputy surveyors residing in Arkansas Territory that I have ever known or heard of having large or profitable contracts there was Mr. Henry W. Conway and Mr. James Conway. All the other Deputies or persons who have done surveying that reside in that Territory I have always understood had none other than the most unprofitable contracts, the profitable contracts haven been given to deputies out of the territory and to the two above named Gentlemen.
You say more than once in your letter to me If on examination, the facts contained in the letter wrote to the land committee in the Senate are found to be true &c what you will then do, but you seem to imply some doubt of the truth of the facts stated in that letter. For a further proof of the truth of a part of the same facts, I refer you to the documents now before the land committee of the Senate on the subject of your official conduct as Surveyor General.
Should this letter be of any service to you, you are at liberty to use it in such way as you may think most to your interest, or as may be best calculated to lead to the discovery or punishment of delinquents.
Your obedient Servant
{signed} W. Bradford
[To] General William Rector
Washington City
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transcribed by Steven E. Weible
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transcribed by Steven E. Weible
