In December 1768, Governor Tryon described the area in a letter as: ""forty-five miles in breadth due north and south and eighty miles due east and west – it having been found to be that distance from the Catawba River to the western frontier line which was run last year between the Cherokee hunting grounds and this Province"." The act establishing the county named commissioners to select a place "whereon to erect court house, prison and stocks." The initial court records beginning with the April 1769 sessions were recorded by Ezekiel Polk, clerk, and the grandfather of James K. Polk, 11th president of the United States.