Late in seventy-three, on a visit to Orangeburg, Aaron had seen men gathered around a proclamation signed by Georgia’s governor, James Wright. This was a notice that he had been expecting, to implement a new treaty that ceded a large tract of land northwest of Augusta and also farther south toward Florida. The governor was appealing for qualified settlers to move into the new territories, the only charge being enough to cover the cost of surveying, and a few shillings per acre to help pay off debts that the Indians owed to British traders.

On his next visit to the Clarkes, Aaron described the new opportunity to Elijah and Hannah. He was not surprised when Elijah made an almost immediate decision that was destined to change all their lives forever. He adopted the land grant opportunity as his own idea and began to announce his future plans as they formed in his mind. “This looks like what we been needin’. Some say Georgia even has an honest governor. I’m aimin’ to go to some of our old neighbors back in Carolina and maybe a few around here to see who’ll go with us. We’ll be needin’ to live close together, so we can protect ourselves against the savages. You cain’t trust any damn agreement they make, and they’ll be burnin’ and stealin’ just like they done in Carolina.”

Aaron was pleased when Elijah added, almost as an afterthought, “Aaron, I hope you’ll be with us, and that you’ll help me pick out the right folks to go along when we move.”

Hannah had some real doubts about moving again, but she could see that her husband had his mind set on it and didn’t say a word. Elijah figured that he might get twenty families to join his group, but first the two men rode the eighty miles over to Augusta to confirm the accuracy of the information on the poster, and to learn how they could claim some land northwest of the town. Aaron went home to tell his wife about their new plans for the future, and Elijah went back to call out names of potential partners who might join in the new venture in Georgia. Hannah made out a list, and after almost two weeks of riding from one farm cabin to another, Elijah had persuaded a dozen families to join them. They all agreed to assemble at his place the first week in November, after their crops had been harvested and the surplus sold. In the meantime, Aaron had been down to the newly ceded land to locate a suitable area to be claimed.