Appointment of Harrison Blanton and Jacob Swigert as Attorneys for Stock Transfer, 29 April 1826
Appointment of Harrison Blanton and Jacob Swigert as Attorneys for Stock Transfer
[29 April 1826]
Know all men by these presents that I James Madison of the County of Orange & State of Virginia, do hereby constitute & appoint Harrison Blanton1 & Jacob Swigert2 or either of them, my lawful Attornies for me & in my name to sell assign and transfer to Mrs. Lucy Todd of the Town of Frankfort & State of Kentucky ninety nine shares of the Stock of the Frankfort Bridge Company3 now standing in my name on the Books of said Company, and which were transferred to me by Thomas Todd deceased, hereby ratifying & confirming whatever my Said Attornies or either of them may lawfully do in the premises.
Written & signed with my own hand, with my seal affixed this 29th. day of April 1826.
James Madison [seal]
Witness
A Madison
Abram Eddins
MS (KyHi).
1. Harrison Blanton (1791–879) was born in Frederick County, Virginia, and migrated to Kentucky with his parents in 1799. He became a successful businessman, providing lumber, brick, and stone and building a number of homes in Franklin County, including his own, the Beeches. Blanton furnished the stone and was responsible for the brickwork for the Kentucky Capitol buildings. In 1812 he constructed the first distillery building at what would become the Buffalo Trace distillery in Frankfort. Among his other enterprises, Blanton was a farmer and livestock breeder and an agent of the Old Bank of Kentucky (DNA: RG 79, National Register of Historic Places, Kentucky SP Beeches, ref# 79000985; Russell Hatter and Gene Burch, A Walking Tour of Historic Frankfort [2002], 31–32; Kleber et al., Kentucky Encyclopedia, 161; Carla Harris Carlton, Barrel Strength Bourbon: The Explosive Growth of America’s Whiskey [Birmingham, Ala., 2017], 165; Daily National Intelligencer, 13 Oct. 1835; Mississippi Free Trader and Natchez Gazette, 13 Jan. 1844; Acts of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Kentucky: Passed at December Session, 1845 [Frankfort, Ky., 1846], 18).
2. Jacob Swigert was a Frankfort lawyer; the clerk of the Court of Appeals, 1825–58; and the editor, with William Littell, of the Digest of the Statute Law of Kentucky (1822) (Hopkins et al., Papers of Henry Clay, 4:399 n. 2; Fiftieth Annual Report of the Association of Graduates of the United States Military Academy [Saginaw, Mich., 1919], 213).
3. Incorporated in 1810, the joint-stock Frankfort Bridge Company built the first permanent bridge across the Kentucky River. The company was authorized to issue up to $50,000 worth of stock (Hopkins et al., Papers of Henry Clay, 4:45 n. 3). Blanton was treasurer of the company (ibid., 8:40).