Jackson had attained to the age of twenty-one years on the 15th of March preceding the entry above quoted, admitting him to the bar in Washington county. He may have been formally admitted at Salisbury or Morganton, North Carolina, but he did not in fact open an office or enter upon the practice of law at either place. The order admitting him to the bar at Jonesboro, therefore, may be accepted and regarded as the opening entry in the business life and the professional and political career of this, one of the greatest of all Americans. These old court records at Jonesboro disclose the fact that Jackson was in the town and in attendance on the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions, at its November term, 1788. Under the law at that time, bills of sale of slaves and horses and deeds to land had to be proven in the court mentioned. A bill of sale was presented to this court by Jackson, at its November term, 1788. This bill of sale is given below, for reasons hereafter to be stated. It is as follows: “A Bill of Sale from Micajah Crews to Andrew Jackson, Esquire for A Negroe Woman named Nancy about eighteen or twenty years of Age was Proven in Open Court by the Oath of David Allison a Subscribing Witness and Ordered to be Recorded.” The court records for the years 1788 and 1789, kept in Washington, Sullivan, Greene and Hawkins counties, establish the fact that Jackson was practising law in those counties during the two years mentioned. He could not, in the very nature of things, have attended court in those counties, if he had been residing at Nashville or practising law in Davidson, Sumner and Tennessee counties, which at that time constituted the “District of Mero.”