The settlers who arrived in the territory before Statehood in 1819 found a wild land with very few white families. The Creek Indians had been forced off their land and finally ceded their land to the U.S. Government on August 9, 1814 after being defeated at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend by the Army of General Andrew Jackson.
   In 1821 the Government started surveying the land and declared that anyone living on the land to be a “squatter”. A few years later they opened a Land Office in Sparta, AL and started selling the land to the people. When James Standley arrived in Henry County is uncertain, but Land Patent # 1622 below represents the first land purchase he made in the county. On the same day he bought another 40.12 acres, Patent # 1623, and another 80 acres, Patent # 1624. On August 15, 1837 he bought another 160 acres, Patents # 3784 & 3785. By the time of his death, in 1846, he owned over 360 acres, all in the s/e corner of Henry County.
  You can view these Land Patents and more on the U.S. Bureau of Land Management Web Page, but to find the Standley information look under Houston County, AL. The address is <http://www.glorecords.blm.gov/>