Oh...those Land Lottery Deals

When you give away anything, there are people there to grab.  Georgia's land lottery was no exception. Most people who were eligible signed up and some of those who weren't lied about it and signed up also.

Speculators paid people to spy out the land and identify the lots which had known gold pockets on them.  Remember gold had been discovered in 1828 and Georgia had been at war with the "intruders" about illegal gold mining since then.  These speculators then had runners ready at Milledgeville when the lots were drawn. When one on their list came up, they verified the person's name and county of residence and dispatched their runner on a fast horse to buy the lot before anyone else could. More than one runner would ride from Milledgeville and the fastest would buy the lot. Then the second runner would show up. The person who sold realized they had been had and frequently gathered up a lawyer and took off for Cherokee County (Forsyth was part of Cherokee for a year and the deeds for years carried the term, formerly Cherokee County).

What kind of people were in Cherokee County at the start?

The ones who had already lived there and wanted to buy back their property they were being dispossessed of, if they could.

The ones who wanted to locate a gold property and buy it if they could. (Not necessarily disclosing their find to the property owner.)

The ones who were merchants and wanted to sell their goods to this booming growth market.  

The ones who were lawyers who knew there would be many deeds to draw and many property disputes to handle.

The ones who drew the lots and hoped they could they could have a better life for their family.

The ones who bought lots from those people who drew them, didn't want to move and sold them.

The women who made their living as prostitutes and went where crowds of men went for a more profitable business.

The women who had to support their families and could do it easier running boarding houses, furnishing meals or doing laundry for the many men alone. A married man didn't always drag his family into the wilds, but went ahead to prepare the property and then send for his family.  

WHAT ABOUT THE LOTS  

The lots were like prizes at Bingo. Some were good. Some were not so good. In some locations, a 40 acre lot wouldn't support a family. A 40 acre lot was 1/4 mile by 1/4 mile. Some were on the tops of rocky mountains. Some were in swampy marshes. Some had an easy water source like a creek or spring. Some didn't.

However, prizes have value.
If a drawer owed someone money, the person who had got the fi fa against them levied on them and had the court sell them to satisfy the debt.
Some people had no confidence that they would they would win so they sold their draws (like selling your Lotto tickets) before the drawing.
People who just didn't want to leave where they were and wanted the cash not the prize sold them.