Louisiana and Aaron Burr 223 



ing. Another, the Tennessee Company, received a 

 grant of what is now most of northern Alabama, 

 and organized a body of men under the leadership 

 of an adventurer named Zachariah Cox, who drifted 

 down the Tennessee in flat-boats to take possession, 

 and repeated the attempt more than once. They 

 were, however, stopped, partly by Blount, and partly 

 by the Indians. The South Carolina Yazoo Com- 

 pany made the most serious effort to get possession 

 of the coveted territory. Its grant included about 

 15,000 square miles in what is now middle Missis- 

 sippi and Alabama ; the nominal price being $67,000. 

 One of the prime movers in this company was 

 a man named Walsh, who called himself Washing- 

 ton, a person of unsavory character, who, a couple 

 of years later, was hanged at Charleston for passing 

 forged paper money in South Carolina. All these 

 companies had hoped to pay the very small prices 

 they were asked for the lands in the depreciated 

 currency of Georgia; but they never did make the 

 full payments or comply with the conditions of the 

 grants, which therefore lapsed. 



Before this occurred the South Carolina Yazoo 

 Company had striven to take possession of its pur- 

 chase by organizing a military expedition to go down 

 the Mississippi from Kentucky. For commander 

 of this expedition choice was made of a Revolution- 

 ary soldier named James O'Fallon, who went to 

 Kentucky, where he married Clark's sister. He en- 

 tered into relations with Wilkinson, who drew him 

 into the tangled web of Spanish intrigue. He raised 



