The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 69, July 1965 - April, 1966 Page: 268
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
titles which Austin might purchase from Mexicans or others who
had any right to acquire lands there. That exception would seem
significant in light of Austin's subsequent contradictory decision.
About two years later on April 12, Austin again wrote his
secretary, that time from Saltillo, Mexico, where Austin was in
the Coahuila and Texas legislature,l and referred to his "reserve
on the Colorado above the road and above Tannehill."0 He
said that he did not want the reserve "interfered with by any
means," and he revealed plans to establish a "retreat" there which
would be free of "the fevers, mosquitoes, and insects of the low
country near the coast."
Less than a month later, Austin again wrote Williams of the
"reserve" and enclosed "all the necessary papers and powers to
perfect the titles for the grants mentioned in them of Aguirre
and Vega."'17 The land in question, Austin said, had cost him
$ i,ooo and would cost him "much more."'8 He instructed Wil-
liams to take out frontage for him on the Colorado from the
upper line of Tannehill's league to 500 varas19 or more above
"the big springs at the foot of the mountain," as well as a fourth
of a league on the mountain to the west of the Colorado "opposite
the ... big springs."20
The empresario provided his secretary an explicit description
of the land that he sought and detailed instructions for arranging
its transfer. Among other things, he mentioned one-fourth of a
sitio or league "at the falls,"2' a site which George Bonnell
in 1840 described as three miles above the new settlement of
15Ibid., 764-765.
"The Tannehill land is shown on a map in the General Land Office as three
tracts north of the Hornsby grant and one south of the Stephen F. Austin claim.
"'Barker (ed.), The Austin Papers, II, 771. Records subsequently filed in the
General Land Office revealed the persons whose titles to the land Austin wanted
perfected to have been Jost Maria de Aguirre, Rafael Aguirre, and Tomas de la
Vega.
"Titles Undelivered and Fragments of Incomplete Files: Austin, Austin and
Williams, Milam, and DeWitt Colonies" (MSS., General Land Office, Austin), File
46, sec. vii, 9.
8lbid.
""Vara" is described in Walter P. Webb and H. Bailey Carroll (eds.), The
Handbook of Texas (2 vols.; Austin, 1952), II, 833, as equalling about thirty-three
and one-third inches.
"OThe springs referred to could have been only Barton Springs.
"Barker (ed.), The Austin Papers, II, 771.268
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 69, July 1965 - April, 1966, periodical, 1966; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117144/m1/328/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.