How Forsyth County Was Formed: Cherokee Land, a Lottery and the Grid Under Your Deed

Forsyth County was created on December 3, 1832, when the Georgia legislature split the old Cherokee County into ten smaller counties. The ground had belonged to the Cherokee Nation. Georgia surveyed it, cut it into 40 acre lots, gave it away to white Georgians in a lottery, and laid out Cumming as the county seat the following year.

That is the short answer. The part of it that still matters to anyone who owns land here is the survey. The grid drawn in 1832 is the same grid your deed, your plat and your tax record are written against today.

The land was Cherokee before it was Forsyth

The Cherokee held this country for centuries. White settlers started pushing in after gold was found here in 1829, and Georgia moved fast to take the title with it. The legislature created one enormous Cherokee County out of Cherokee Nation land, then on December 3, 1832 divided it into ten counties: Bartow, originally named Cass, plus Cherokee, Cobb, Floyd, Forsyth, Gilmer, Lumpkin, Murray, Paulding and Union.

The new county was named for John Forsyth, who was governor of Georgia from 1827 to 1829 and went on to serve as a United States senator and as Secretary of State under Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren. The first county officers were commissioned in April 1833.

Georgia gave the whole county away in 40 acre lots

Two lotteries handed out the Cherokee cession. The act of December 21, 1830 laid the territory off into districts and set up the sixth land lottery, where a lot was 160 acres and the grant fee was $18. The act of December 24, 1831 then required that roughly a third of those districts be designated gold districts, because gold might be under them. Gold districts were cut into 40 acre lots and drawn separately, for a $10 grant fee.

Forsyth County is built out of four districts of the First Section: the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 14th. All four of them were gold districts. So this county was not given away in 160 acre farms. It was given away in 40 acre pieces, and the county’s own land lot layer bears that out: Forsyth County GIS maps 3,797 land lots inside the county today, averaging about 40 acres each.

The gold lottery drawing ran from October 22, 1832 to May 1, 1833. To enter you had to be a United States citizen with three years of Georgia residence. A bachelor 18 or older got one draw, a widow got one, a married head of a family got two, and a family of orphans got two. Anyone who had already won land in an earlier lottery was out. So was anyone who had mined gold in Cherokee territory after June 1, 1830, anyone who had gone and settled there, anyone convicted of a felony in a Georgia court, and any member of the “Pony Club.”

District	Land lots in Forsyth today	Original lot size
1st	69	about 40 acres
2nd	1,130	about 40 acres
3rd	1,301	about 40 acres
14th	1,297	about 40 acres

Cumming came next

Cumming was founded in 1833, a year after the county. The town site was two 40 acre lots from the 1832 lottery. County officials bought them in 1833 and 1834, cut them into town lots and sold them off, keeping one back for the courthouse. A post office opened in January 1834, and in December 1834 the legislature incorporated Cumming and named it the seat of Forsyth County. The name is usually credited to William Cumming, a Georgia native who made his reputation as a United States Army colonel in the War of 1812.

The courthouse burned in 1900, was rebuilt in 1905, and burned again in 1973. That is worth knowing if you ever go looking for the paper on an old family tract, because a good deal of it went up with the building.

What happened to the Cherokee

Gold and the Federal Road made the 1830s and 1840s prosperous for the new arrivals. For the people already here they were the end. The Treaty of New Echota was signed in 1835 at the Cherokee national capital in north Georgia, ceding Cherokee land east of the Mississippi River, and in 1838 the remaining Cherokee were forced west on the Trail of Tears. Fort Campbell, one of the assembly points where people were held before removal, stood in this county, though its exact site is still not settled.

It should be said plainly: every land title in Forsyth County, including every tract we list, traces back through that taking. The 1832 lottery was the mechanism that converted a nation’s homeland into 40 acre parcels with grant fees attached.

Forsyth got smaller before it got bigger

The county did not keep everything it was given. On December 18, 1857 the legislature created Milton County out of parts of Cherokee, Forsyth and Cobb, with Alpharetta as its seat, and added small pieces of DeKalb and Gwinnett in 1859. Milton County was abolished and merged into Fulton County on January 1, 1932. What is now Alpharetta and Milton was, for 75 years, the county next door, and part of it was Forsyth before that.

Look back at the table and you can see the cut. Forsyth County has 69 land lots left in the 1st District against roughly 1,300 in each of the others. The 1st District mostly left with Milton. When a south county deed cites the 1st District, it is referencing a remnant.

The 1832 grid is still in your deed

This is the practical part. Forsyth County’s GIS department describes the land lot system in its own parcel service this way: the districts are generally square areas that do not necessarily follow county lines, each district is divided into square land lots, and legal descriptions of property in the surveyed parts of the state must include the land lot number and the district number.

Must, not may. Two numbers set in 1832 are still a required element of the legal description of your property. They turn up in your deed, on every recorded plat, in title commitments, in zoning conditions and in the county’s tax records.

The 40 acre original grid is also why development land here trades the way it does. In counties laid off in 160 acre lots, a single original lot can carry a whole subdivision. Here, a 60 acre development tract almost always spans two or three original land lots, and very often more than one chain of title and more than one owner. That is the arithmetic behind so much of the assemblage work in this county, and behind the number of Forsyth tracts that look like one farm on the ground and three parcels on paper. If you have ever wondered why the builder who wrote to you also wrote to your neighbors, part of the answer was decided by a surveyor in 1832.

From 3,797 lots to 282,805 people

The whole county came out of that survey as 3,797 lots of about 40 acres. Today the United States Census Bureau puts 224.62 square miles of land in Forsyth County, 251,283 residents at the 2020 census and an estimated 282,805 as of July 1, 2025.

Put the two ends of that next to each other. In our Forsyth County Land Sales Report 2025 the median price for residential development land in the county was $106,589 an acre, and commercial land ran a median of $475,259 an acre. At the residential median, one 40 acre lottery lot is roughly $4.3 million of land. The grant fee on that lot in 1833 was $10.

What has not changed is the frame. Growth here still moves lot by lot across a grid drawn before Cumming had a post office. Whether your land can be developed today is a question about zoning, sewer and roads. Where your land is, and what it is legally called, was settled in 1832.

Frequently asked questions

When was Forsyth County, Georgia created?

Forsyth County was created on December 3, 1832, by an act of the Georgia legislature that divided the former Cherokee County into ten counties. The first county officers were commissioned in April 1833.

Who is Forsyth County named after?

John Forsyth, who served as governor of Georgia from 1827 to 1829 and later as a United States senator and as Secretary of State under Presidents Andrew Jackson and Martin Van Buren.

Was Forsyth County land really given away in a lottery?

Yes. The land was distributed in Georgia’s 1832 lotteries. All four of the districts that make up Forsyth County were designated gold districts, so the lots here were 40 acres rather than 160, and the grant fee was $10. The gold lottery drawing ran from October 22, 1832 to May 1, 1833.

What does land lot and district mean in a Forsyth County deed?

They are the coordinates of the 1832 survey. Forsyth County is made up of the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 14th districts of the First Section, and each district is divided into square land lots of about 40 acres. Forsyth County GIS states that legal descriptions of property here must include the land lot number and the district number, which is why they still appear in deeds and on plats today.

Why does Forsyth County have so few land lots in the 1st District?

Because most of that district left. Milton County was created from parts of Cherokee, Forsyth and Cobb in 1857 and merged into Fulton County in 1932. Forsyth County GIS now counts 69 land lots in the 1st District, against 1,130 in the 2nd, 1,301 in the 3rd and 1,297 in the 14th.

When did Cumming become the county seat?

In December 1834, when the legislature incorporated the town and named it the seat of Forsyth County. Cumming had been founded the year before on two 40 acre lots drawn in the 1832 lottery, one of which was held back for the courthouse.

Sources

New Georgia Encyclopedia, Forsyth County: https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/forsyth-county/

New Georgia Encyclopedia, Cumming: https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/cumming/

New Georgia Encyclopedia, Milton County: https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/counties-cities-neighborhoods/milton-county

Georgia Archives, 1832 Seventh (Gold) Lottery: https://www.georgiaarchives.org/research/1832_gold_lottery

Georgia Archives, 1832 Sixth Land Lottery: https://www.georgiaarchives.org/research/1832_land_lottery

Georgia Historical Society, Forsyth County historical marker, erected 1956: https://www.georgiahistory.com/ghmi_marker_updated/forsyth-county/

Georgia Historical Society, Marker Monday: New Echota-Cherokee National Capital: https://www.georgiahistory.com/?p=42880

Forsyth County GIS, EnerGov parcel and address map service, Landlot layer, land lot counts and layer description read October 16, 2026: https://geo.forsythco.com/gis/rest/services/EnerGov/EnerGovParcelAddressMapService/MapServer/18

Crawford Lands, Forsyth County Land Sales Report 2025: https://www.crawfordlands.com/news/forsyth-county-land-sales-report-2025

Crawford Lands, LLC is a licensed real estate brokerage in the State of Georgia, license #81852. This article is general information, not legal, tax or appraisal advice. Confirm the legal description of any specific property with a title attorney and with Forsyth County records. Contact us.