Before he turns up at Bellevue, Ste. Genevieve district, Missouri, in the fall of 1803, Elisha Baker held at least three North Carolina land grants in Greene County — territory that was legally North Carolina until its 1789–90 cession to the federal government, then part of the Southwest Territory until Tennessee statehood in 1796. Read together, the three grants trace a single expanding home tract on Long Creek and the Holston/French Broad confluence rather than separate, unrelated purchases.
At a glance
| Grant No. 466 | Grant No. 1174 | Grant No. 337 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Date | 20 Sept. 1787 | 12 Jan. 1793 | 12 Jan. 1793 |
| Acreage | 640 acres | 200 acres | 300 acres |
| Warrant | No. 504 | No. 336 | No. 1170 |
| Location | North side of the Holston River, at the mouth of the first small creek below the French Broad | Both sides of Long Creek, joining the tract Baker "now lives on" | Long Creek, at the head of Walnut Valley, "including his improvements" |
| Consideration | Ten pounds per hundred acres | Fifty shillings per hundred acres | Ten pounds per hundred acres |
| Signed by | Gov. Richard Caswell | Gov. Richard Dobbs Spaight | Gov. Richard Dobbs Spaight |
One expanding tract
Grant No. 466 — 640 acres at the Holston/French Broad confluence, Baker's earliest and largest known Greene County holding, and the tract the other two grow out of.
Grant No. 1174 — 200 acres on Long Creek, explicitly joining "the tract of land the said Baker now lives on."
Grant No. 337 — 300 acres on Long Creek, issued the same day, incorporating land Baker had already cleared and improved.
Together the three grants bring Baker's documented Greene County holdings to 1,180 acres accumulated over six years — a substantial, expanding home estate rather than scattered speculative entries.
Elsewhere in this record
Related records covers a neighboring 1793 survey that uses Baker's own tract as its starting boundary, and works through a same-name lead from 1778 Dobbs/Craven County that was investigated and set aside as an unrelated man.
Bridge to Missouri follows Baker out of Greene County to his first documented Missouri settlement in 1802, a year ahead of the better-known Bellevue settlement.