Memorial to the President by the Citizens of the Territory February 1, 1830

To His Excellency Andrew Jackson, President of the United States of America

This document was transcribed to appear as closely as possible as it does in the Territorial Papers of Florida. The section in parentheses indicates words that were struck out in the document. Transcribed by Gail Vickrey.

We the undersigned citizens of County of Leon and Territory of Florida represent with the greatest respect to your Excellency that Middle Florida in general is distinguished by a paucity of streams of running water of a volume and permanency of supply suitable to mills and other machinary propelled by water. This is eminently and peculiarly the character of the County in which your petitioners reside, and the consequence is a great scarcity of lumber. The few streams of the requisite size and seats for mills, in a County forty miles in length by thirty in breadth, are with two exceptions found only within the limits of the Forbes purchase, On this purchase and at points accessible to the citizens of Tallahassee and its vicinity, exist seats which have been improved for the purpose of supplying, the necessities of the public. They are uniformly surrounded by large tracts of sterile land, covered with a growth of pine which cannot be destroyed for ages, and the use of which can in no manner lessen the value of the land. Your petitioners beg permission, most respectfully to state to your Excellency. that the District Attorney of the United States, for the District of Middle Florida has obtained from the Judge of the said District a writ of injunction directed to certain proprietors of saw mills, in Forbes purchase suspending their opperrations indefinitely-and forbidding them to use pine timber, growing on any of the public lands -Your petitioners believe there is no law of the General Government, prohibiting the use of such timber for purposes solely of domestick application They understand in the neighbouring state of Alabama the practice is universally tolerated, That no citizen or community, has been denied a similar accommodation when the object has been confined to domestic supply and they solemnly declare their belief that no lumber within the said County of Leon has ever been sawed for any other purpose, that none has ever been exported nor was any ever prepared with that view, To inform your Excellency, that the use of these seats- and the pine timber in their vicinity are essential to their accommodation and convenience; that they are indispensible to the wants of this youthful community still struggling with most of the hardships incident to the first settlement of a new country, will be sufficient to procure a revocation of the orders under which the District Attorney has acted. They are willing even to go father, and pronounce the measure impolitic even if the Government act, with a view singly to the value of their own property supposing them to be proprietors of said purchase; for they entertain no doubt, that these mills add decidedly to the value of the lands included within its limits, Your petitioners believing that your Excellency is guided by a liberal and enlighted'd policy- [without the smallest stain or tinture of the sinister consideration of politics which usually mingles so much in the measures of a Territory] - appeal with the greatest confidence to you generosity, and solicit the interposition of their respected chief magistrate to grant them the necessary relief.

TALLAHASSEE 1st February 1830