Jeremiah P. Hinton Deposition

This deposition by Jeremiah P. Hinton is from "Memorial of the Heirs of Carlos de Vilemont, Praying the Confirmation of their Claim to a Tract of Land." Taken from a book of documents related to the 24th Congress, 2nd Session, and beginning with President Andrew Jackson's message to Congress. The following is located on pages 132-3.

It is presented here in the hope that it will be of value to someone researching Mr. Hinton.

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State Of Arkansas, county of Chicot:

This day personally appeared before me, the undersigned, justice of the peace in and for said county, Jeremiah P. Hinton, of Bullitt county, State of Kentucky, who, being duly sworn according to law, deposeth and saith that he has been in the habit of navigating the Ohio and Mississippi rivers since the year A.D. 1809; that, in the year 1809, he descended the Mississippi river with a flatboat, and landed at what is now commonly called Point Chicot; that, whilst lying to there with his boat, he was frequently on shore, and that he distinctly recollects that there was a small improvement situated on said Point Chicot, consisting of a small field and log cabin, occupied by a Frenchman named Le Fevre; that he had vegetables, poultry, cows, and calves, around the premises; that in the year 1811 or 1812, or at or near those periods, he again landed at Point Chicot, and remained there a short time ; that he then found living there, and became acquainted with, a certain Joseph Hutsell, who had an improvement on the lower part of the point situated on the tract at present occupied by Horace F. Walworth; that said improvement consisted of a log cabin, and two or three acres of land opened and in cultivation; that said Hutsell was residing there, he believes, with the permissipn of some French commandant, whose name he does not know; that, in 1809, and for some years thereafter, the Indians were in numbers frequently on the points and the surrounding tracts of land, and at that early period it was considered unsafe settling there; that the Frenchman above named, Le Fevre, resided there with impunity, he thinks, from the circumstance of his having an Indian wife; and further this deponent saith not.
J. P. HINTON.

Sworn to and subscribed before me, this 21st day of October, 1836.
WILLIAM TAYLOR, J.P.

State Of Arkansas, county of Chicot:

I, James Blaine, clerk of the circuit and county courts and ex officio recorder within and for the county aforesaid, do hereby certify that the within-named William Taylor, whose name is subscribed to the within and foregoing deposition as the magistrate before whom the same was made, is, and was at the time of taking the same, an acting justice of the peace within and for the county aforesaid, duly commissioned and qualified, and that full faith and credit are due, and ought of right to be given to all his official acts as such.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed the seal of office, at Columbia, this 21st day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty-six, and of the independence of the United States the sixty-first.

JAMES BLAINE, Clerk, &c.

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