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The First Survey Through Hal's Lake Swamp                                                                   Page 6

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        Levin lived for a brief time in Philadelphia, where (as an
Episcopalian) he saw President Washington worship, and met Robert
Morris, "the patriot-financier of the revolution.".23

        In 1792 Levin moved to Georgia,24 as agent of the North
American Land Company, Morris' outfit.25  On October 28, 1796,
Levin married Eleanor Davis of Prince George's County, but by 1797
Morris was broke and couldn't pay him.26

        Levin briefly ran a flour mill, but "[h]e was chiefly
interested in surveying", a skill he had learned from a relative.27
A friend wrote of Levin that "he is the most correct and best
surveyor in the State of Georgia, or perhaps, elsewhere",28 and
"much of the time he was in the back country of Georgia with his
compass and chain".29  Five of his nine children were born in
Georgia.

        In the spring of 1807 Levin moved his family to near Natchez,
to Washington, in the Mississippi Territory, where he hoped to find
great need for surveyors.30

        In September of 1808, Seth Pease, the surveyor of United
States Lands south of Tennessee, offered Wailes a job to survey the
Choctaw purchase "with all the perfection which the compass and
chain is susceptible of and should be happy to avail myself of your
service in this particular," at $4 per mile, the maximum.31

        At the end of the survey, Wailes presumably sent one copy of
the Journal and Field Notes to the Land office.

        In April of 1810 Wailes was named "Register of the Land Office
of the United States in and for the Western part of the Territory

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23Id. at 33

24Id.

25Id. at 34.

26Id.

27Id. at 35

28Id.

29Id.

30Id. at 36-37

31Id. at 39.

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