Blount also corresponded with many other men on the question of these land speculations, and it is amusing to read the expressions of horror of his correspondents when they read that Tennessee had imposed a land tax. [Footnote:  Blount MSS., Thomas Hart to Blount, Lexington, Ky., March 29, 1795.] By his activity he became a very large landed proprietor, and when Tennessee was made a State he was taxed on 73,252 acres in all.  The tax was not excessive, being but $179.72. [Footnote:  Do., Return of taxable property of Blount, Nashville, Sept. 9, 1796.] It was of course entirely proper for Blount to get possession of the land in this way.  The theory of government on the frontier was that each man should be paid a small salary, and be allowed to exercise his private business just so long as it did not interfere with his public duties.  Blount’s land speculations were similar to those in which almost every other prominent American, in public or private life, was engaged.  Neither Congress nor the States had as yet seen the wisdom of allowing the laud to be sold only in small parcels to actual occupants, and the favorite kind of speculation was the organization of land companies.  Of course there were other kinds of business in which prominent men took part.  Sevier was interested not only in land, but in various mercantile ventures of a more or less speculative kind; he acted as an intermediary with the big importers, who were willing to furnish some of the stores with six months’ credit if they could be guaranteed a settlement at the end of that time. [Footnote:  Do., David Allison to Blount, Oct. 16, 1791.]

    Business Versatility of the Frontiersman

One of the characteristics of all the leading frontiersmen was not only the way in which they combined business enterprises with their work as Government officials and as Indian fighters, but the readiness with which they turned from one business enterprise to another.  One of Blount’s Kentucky correspondents, Thomas Hart, the grandfather of Benton, in his letter to Blount shows these traits in typical fashion.  He was engaged in various land speculations with Blount, [Footnote:  Clay MSS., Blount to Hart, Knoxville, February 9, 1794.  This was just as Hart was moving to Kentucky.] and was always writing to him about locating land warrants, advertising the same as required by law, and the like.  He and Blount held some tens of thousands of acres of the Henderson claim, and Hart proposed that they should lay it out in five-hundred-acre tracts, to be rented to farmers, with the idea that each farmer should receive ten cows and calves to start with; a proposition which was of course hopeless, as the pioneers would not lease lands when it was so easy to obtain freeholds.  In his letters, Hart mentioned cheerfully that though he was sixty-three years old he was just as well able to carry on his manufacturing business, and, on occasion, to leave it, and play pioneer, as he ever had been, remarking