The Great American Land Bubble

Illustrations

Robert Morris, Patriot and Financier—America’s Foremost Land Boomer

The Black Line Marks the “Indian Boundary” Beyond Which the Colonists Were Ordered Not to Go

Patrick Henry

Benjamin Franklin

Taken from Jedidiah Morse’s The American Geography, Published in London, 1794. Circles Show Claims of the Ohio, Illinois, and Wabash Companies. Indiana Is Placed Just West of Maryland

Sir William Johnson, British Indian Agent in the Northern Colonies

James Duane

Timothy Pickering

James Greenleaf

The Prospectus of the North American Land Company Issued in London. Morris’ Effort to Interest British Speculators

Gouverneur Morris, Statesman, Diplomat, and Land Agent

William Constable, Principal Proprietor of Macomb’s Purchase

Jeremiah Wadsworth

The Map of Macomb’s Purchase Which James Constable Took to Europe. The Adjoining Tracts Are Marked as “Thick Settled Sections” When They Were Still Wilderness

Le Roy de Chaumont, Proprietor of Northern New York Lands

New York State Parceled Out at Wholesale

Advertisement of the Pulteney Estate in the Hartford Courant, January 14, 1807

An Early Map of Holland Purchase, Published in France in 1803 in Jean Phillippe Louis Bridel’s Le pour et le contre, ou avis à ceus qui se proposent de passer dans les Etats-Unis d’Amérique

Broadside of Holland Land Company, April 24, 1821, Announcing the Failure to Plan to Sell Out to the State, and Offering New Terms to Settlers

Prospectus of the Compagnie de New York

The Ohio Land Grants

Madame de Staël, Who Speculated in Northern New York Lands

Bronze Tablet Commemorating the Grant to Ohio Company of Associates, on the Portal of the Sub-treasury Building, New York City

William Duer

Joel Barlow

John Cleves Symmes

A Miami Land-Warrant

Jonathan Dayton

First Partition of the Yazoo Territory

James Wilson, Associate Justice of the U. S. Supreme Court

The First Plan of the City of Washington, Engraved in 1792 and Used in Selling the “Lots”

The Second Partition of the Yazoo Lands as Shown by Jedidiah Morse in His American Gazeteer, published in 1797

One of the “Yazoo Frauds” Pamphlets

An Early View of Washington

Thomas Law, an Englishman Who Bought Real Estate in the Federal City

An Illustration of Early Western Town Jobbing

A Contemporary Portrait of Nicholas Longworth Embellished with His Favorite Fruit and Beverage

The Banks of the Ohio. Mr. Longworth’s Vineyards

Morris Birkbeck

John Jacob Astor

Aaron Burr

Location of the De Bastrop Claim, Based upon Map in the U. S. Land Office

Moses Austin

Stephen F. Austin in 1836

Stephen F. Austin in Hunting Costume

The Principal Texas Grants Based on Map Published in 1836

Daniel Webster, Whose Interest in Western Lands Was Both Private and Public

Chicago in 1831

Map of Chicago, Dated 1836, Showing Location of the “Canal Lots” and Tracts Bought and Resold by Charles Butler, G. B. Hubbard, and Associates

The “Proposed” New Brighton, Staten Island, Development

William B. Ogden, First Mayor of Chicago and a Large Real Estate Proprietor

San Francisco in 1848

Map of San Francisco about 1851

John Augustus Sutter, on Whose Estate Gold Was Discovered

John C. Frémont

Robert Rantoul, Jr., Who Obtained the Land Grant for the Illinois Central Railroad

George Francis Train

Laying the Track of the Pacific Railroad

Jay Cooke

Map of Location of the Northern Pacific Land Grant, “Banana Belt,” Which Inspired J. Proctor Knott’s Famous Speech

Duluth, the “Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas” in 1871

The Circle Marks the Location of the “Bonanza Farms”

Harvesting on a Bonanza Farm

The City of New Babylon on Paper

The City of New Babylon in Fact

Martin Chuzzlewit Selects His Lot in the Thriving City of Eden

The Thriving City of Eden in Fact

Making More Land in Florida to Meet the Demand of Speculators

The Davis Island Country Club Built on Land That a Year Previous Was Under Water

Skyscrapers Rising on the Miami Waterfront in November, 1925

An Alluring and Artistic Full-page Advertisement of Boca Raton