The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 24, July 1920 - April, 1921 Page: 23
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Question of Texan Jurisdiction in New Mexico; 1848-50 23
to submit to the civil jurisdiction of Texas, after the military
forces of the United States ceased to exercise such functions. He
also concurred with Wood on the question of sending a commis-
sioner to Washington, but felt that Texas should first decide upon
the course to be pursued in case the mission proved futile, in order
that the commissioner might at once make known the position of
his state.84 This same message also included a suggestion that
the territory lying north of the parallel of thirty-six degrees, thirty
minutes, be sold to the United States government for the purpose
of liquidating the public debt of the state."
The legislature now became active once more, and on December
31, 1849, new boundaries were designated for Santa FP county,
decreasing its size, and from the remainder of the original county,
as organized in 1848, the three new counties of Presidio, El Paso,
and Worth were created.8" Presidio county was to include all the
territory between the Rio Pecos and the Rio Grande, from the
junction of the two rivers north to a line running straight north-
east to the Pecos from a point on the Rio Grande where the Ford
and Neighbors trail first touches that stream, "as defined by a
map compiled by Robert Creuzbaur, date of 1849." This map
shows the trail as striking the Rio Grande about one hundred
miles south of El Paso.87
El Paso county included the territory between the two rivers
from the northern boundary of Presidio county to a line extending
from a point on the Rio Grande, twenty miles above the town of
San Diego, due eastward to, the Pecos. This line was also to form
the southern boundary of Worth county, which was to cover the
84Bell's message to the legislature, December 26, 1849, in Senate Jour-
nal, 3rd Legislature, 285-287; also in Austin State Gazette, December
29, 1849.
8"Similar suggestions had been made previously by both Henderson and
Wood, but these seem to have been for an indiscriminate sale of any
unoccupied lands within the state. See Miller, Financial History of
Texas, 118. Memucan Hunt, attorney for a number of the creditors,
in 1849, published a pamphlet entitled The Public Debt and Lands of
Texas, and in this he seems to have originated the idea of selling a
definite portion of the territory claimed by the state. For a reference to
the pamphlet and a brief sketch of its contents, see De Bow's Commercial
Review, VII, 273. A copy of the pamphlet itself, is in the Bancroft
Collection, University of California.
s8Gammel, Laws of Texas, III, 462-463.
"8The map is in Creuzbaur, Guide to California and the Pacific Coast.
See also a letter from James S. Ford to the editor of the Texas Democrat,
written June 18, 1849, in Ibid., 4-5.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 24, July 1920 - April, 1921, periodical, 1921; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101078/m1/29/?rotate=270: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.