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Our Catlzolic Heritage in Tezas
had an old bell loaned to it by the old Mission of Espiritu Santo, an image of Nuestra Senara Maria Santisima del Rosario, an old damask ornament given by the College of Zacatecas, a chalice, paten, and all other things necessary for divine worship, one large and eight small kettles to cook pozole (corn), eight nietates (grinding mortars), six comales (flat irons to cook corn cakes), six pots, and a set of carpenter's tools." Fail11re of the Vedoya settlement on tlze Nueces, 1749-1750. It will be remembered that Escandon planned a settlement on the Nueces River to be called Villa de Vedoya under the patronage of Nuestra Senora de Covadonga with a mission to be named Nuestra Senora de Soto. Even the missionary who was to have charge was named. This was Father Fray Francisco Xavier Silva, destined to suffer martyrdom on Texas soil. But because of various difficulties and the failure to find a truly suitable place for settlement along the Nueces the project was finally abandoned. Captain Pedro Gonzalez de Paredes actually recruited fifty families in Coahuila for the proposed Villa de Vedoya and bravely set out in the summer of 1749 for the new settlement. He got as far as Boca de Leones, but the drought made him halt there. Escandon sent him three hundred fanegas of corn from Linares and ordered one hundred horses for him. He gave instructions to the lieutenant of San Juan Bautista to escort the party to the Nueces. But only one hundred fanega.r of corn reached the stranded settlers at Boca de Leones and the horses could not be secured at any price. In the meantime seven persons died from ·illness. In view of the circumstances, Escandon consulted the missionaries and the more experienced officers of the frontier. Captain Gonzalez and his party were frankly discouraged and asked to be allowed to settle somewhere else. Escandon yielded to their petition and to the circumstances. He ordered Captain de la Garza Falcon of Camargo to escort the prospective founders of Vedoya on the Nueces to the Santander River instead, where they founded the new Villa de Soto la Marina. In his report to the viceroy Escandon explained the circumstances that had forced him to give up the founding of Vedoya, but he emphasized the importance of a settle- ment on the Nueces as a strategic position between the outposts on the Rio·Grande and the Presidio of La Bahia now at Santa Dorotea on the San Antonio River. 10 ~y Camberos'• report, May 26, 1758. Historia, v. 287, pp. 108-u1,- 1overro, Dfarlo que hlzo ... Hutoria, v. 29, pt. 2, pp. 283-285 ; Escandon to the Viceroy, April 17, 1749. Provincias lnt1rnas, v. 179, pt. :a, PP· 507-508 i same to
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