John Luttrell of theTransylvania Land Deal.
		During the political upheavals in England, members of collateral branches of the Luttrell family migrated to America. They were younger sons, doubtless, of the family and possibly without fortune other than name and courage. But the first Luttrell mentioned in Tennessee history must have been closely connected with the rich and powerful family of which Henry Lawes Luttrell was the first Earl and Anne Luttrell, Dutchess of Cumberland, for he was evidently a man of wealth and position.     This John Luttrell was associated with Colonel Richard Henderson and "other men of capital," namely Thomas Hart, John Williams, James Hogg, Nathanial Hart, David Hart, Leonard H. Bulloch, and William Johnson. They paid, it is said, ten thousand pounds sterling in merchandise to the Indians for certain lands and at that time,1775, such a sum was an enormous fortune. The purchase was called "Transylvania" and the nine proprietors at first contemplated a seperate and independent Government, but in a memorial addressed to the Continental Congress of 1775, they asked that Transylvania be added to the number of the United Colonies. "Having their hearts warmed with the same noble spirit that animates the colonies and moved with indignation at the late ministerial and parliamentary userpations, it is the earnest wish of the proprietors of Transylvania to be considered by the colonies as brethren engaged in the same great cause of liberty and mankind."     From the brother of this John Luttrell of the Transylvania purchase the Tennessee family may have sprung.     The land purchase was "all south of the Kentucky River, beginning at the mouth or junction of said river with the Ohio to its source, thence south into Tennessee, until a westwardly line should cross the Cumberland Mountain so as to strike the Ridge which divides the waters of the Tennessee River from those of the Cumberland, and with that ridge to the Ohio River, and with that river to the mouth of the Kentucky River aforesaid."    This interesting estate purchased from the Cherokee's included most of the land, or at least a very large portion of the land now known as Kentucky and Tennessee.     The company took possession on April 20, 1775, but the Governor of North Carolina issued a proclamation declaring the purchase illegal and Virginia did the same. Later the State of North Carolina allowed the proprieters two hundred thousand acres in lieu of their purchase and the State of Virginia declared a similar grant along with the State of Tennessee. So, though the proprieters did not own the whole of Tennessee and Kentucky they had a large slice.     Judge Henderson opened a land office in Nashville, then the French Lick for the sale of these lands.     John Luttrell who was of Cheatham County, North Carolina, was clerk of the Crown at Hillsboro, 1770, before the Revolution, a Colonel in the American Army, during the Revolution and he evidently had no children. He willed his land to his widow and to his three brothers, William, Hugh, and Thomas of Westmorland County, Virginia. His widow paid William and Hugh cash for their share of the land located in Tennessee.                                                                                            Source, "Tennessee Cousins"