GEORGIA PEACHES Chapter Seven

I suppose you've heard how a group of civic minded men gathered in Philadelphia during the summer of 1787 to create a “more perfect union” (above). Well, they did. Except it would be well to remember they were human beings, not machines and that civics is not a science, but an art form, in which each human expresses a different vision of perfection and hell. 

And in the case of James Wilson (above), opponent to the Bill of Rights and Justice of the Supreme Court under the new constitution and briber in-chief for the Yazoo land fraud, perfection included the right to lie to and steal from his fellow humans.

Remember Robert Morris who created the Bank of North America, which financed the Revolutionary War?  Well, the bank had originally been chartered in Pennsylvania, and after the Revolution patriots who who did not trust the power the bank gave Morris revoked it's charter. But in 1786 the state was sued by a share holder in that bank, who claimed the repeal had violated the rights of an innocent party – i.e. him, James Wilson. And a year later, he was able to replace the Articles of Confederation which he hated, Justice Wilson was one of those civic minded men who gathered in Philadelphia to draw up the new Constitution for the United States.

The state of Pennsylvania had backed down from Wilson's lawsuit, re-charted the bank and put Wilson on the board.  But Wilson was determined his new Federal government would show respect for business. So, in drawing the new constitution for America, James Wilson added what became Section 10 of the first Article of The Constitution, which read in part, “No State shall enter into any Treaty...coin Money...pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts, or grant any Title of Nobility...”. This was to be a capitalist nation, and respect for business was thus written into its constitution. 

All of which brings us back to 1795 when the Georgia Yazoo Company bought 11 million acres of swamp land for 1/4 cent an acre.  In August of 1795,  now bankrupt Georgia Company was bought by morally bankrupt James Greenleaf.  He paid 1 cent an acre. Then in November of 1795  Greenleaf sold the company to yet another group of speculators, for 8 cents an acre, giving Greenleaf a 650% profit in just 3 months. The new owners renamed it the New England-Mississippi Company  But why were these speculators paying so much for a dead company? Hadn't the new owners never heard of Caveat Emptor?

Listed first among the directors of the New England-Mississippi Company was Boston lawyer, Benjamin Hichborn (above), a  cousin to Paul Revere on his mother's side.  And Benjamin's real talent was as a gossip, knowing which ear would be most receptive to which dirt.  In the late 1790's he aligned himself with the  Democrat-Republicans, becoming a trusted and rare confidant for Thomas Jefferson himself in Federalist New England. 

The other company directors were equally well connected. Samuel Brown was a member of the  Providence, Rhode Island Browns,  who had made a fortune insuring slave ships which brought rum to Africa, traded it for black skinned human who were then traded in Barbados for cotton and coffee.

Benjamin Joy was a Massachusetts land speculator. Thomas Winthrop (above) was then a thirty-something son of the iconic Boston family.  George Blake was yet another lawyer-speculator . And finally there was John Peck. 

He was 75 years old in 1800. Most people knew him for what he considered his hobby – he was “The most scientific and most successful naval architect” in the new nation, having designed small and fast privateers (above) for smuggler John Hancock and later the colonial navy. But someone else had to build the ships, because John did not work or play well with others.

As a human being John Peck was secretive, “...Often argumentative and egotistical, tending to alienate those with whom he interacted”. In other words, the people who knew him best, disliked him the most. 

John Peck saw himself as a merchant, starting with a trading post on Crabtree Neck (above), where the Skillings River flows into Frenchman's Bay, not far from Bar Harbor, Maine. It is still labeled Peck's Point on the maps. John invested his profits in land, and there are few communities in today's Maine, which do not list him on their early property rolls. So it was a natural that the wealthy landowner would by shares in the New England-Mississippi Company. 

And it was John Peck who on 14 May, 1803, sold to Robert Fletcher of New Hampshire, 15,000 acres of the New England- Mississippi company holdings, at the inflated price of $5 an acre. If the lawyers are to be believed Robert Fletcher felt cheated by Peck, and later in 1803, just like Mr. Chandler in 1603 - remember him? - sued to get his money back

Robert Fletcher was a lawyer from Amherst, New Hampshire (above).  He was only 42 years old in 1803, and owned extensive properties in the state. He was also a very successful husband, fathering 13 children, but ultimately, an unsuccessful businessman.  His final investment was in timber lands in Montreal, Canada. And when this venture failed in November 1809, Robert Fletcher shot himself. But even after his suicide, the court case he had launched continued all the way to the Supreme Court – just as it was intended to. Which was amazing because it was a set up, a fake case. And everybody knew it.

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