WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 1831-1832
227
ing proper calculations we may anticipate the time you may arrive there Which should bee early in June or before You may go from this to Texas via Natches and New Orleans in 25 to 30 Ds -without fatigue and can travel in Texas in July and August with perfect safety all-tho not so pleasantly as in cool seasson Have you made any progress in purchasing Shairs in ·Leftwichs:1 Greant - [Endorsed] : Copy to Saml Houston May 24, 1832. 1 James Prentiss Letters, The University of .Texas Library. See Prentiss to Houston, May 4, 1832, note 1. 1 John Thomson Mason was born at "Rasberry Plains," Loudoun County, Virginia, on January 8, 1787. He was educated at William and Mary College. In 1812 he removed to Lexington, Kentucky, and in 1817, President Monroe appointed him United States marshal of the District of Kentucky. In 1830, President Jackson appointed him Secretary of the Territory of Michigan, and Superintendent of Indian Affairs. He did not hold this office long, but resigned it in favor of his son, Stevens Thomson Mason. After 1831 he became the confidential agent of the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Com- pany, a company organized in 1830. This company took over the business of colonizing the land grants made by the government of Mexico to Lorenzo de Zavala, Joseph Vehlein, and David G. Burnet, all these men being empresarios in the department of Nacogdoches. For more than twenty years Mason was engaged in Texas affairs as agent for this Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company and for other land enterprises. He died at Galveston, Texas, in 1850. See Kate Mason Rowland, "General John Thomson Mason," Texas Historical Quarterly, XI, 163. 3 William Taylor Barry (February 6, 1785-August 30, 1855), lawyer, statesman. See Parton, Life of And1·ew Jackson, III, 178. Dictio11a1·y of American B·iogravh11, I, 656-658. •In his letter to Houston, May 4, 1832, Prentiss calls this man "Charles A. Clinton," and states that he is a son of DeWitt Clinton of New York. No reason has been found for the name "Elias" in this letter, for it is clear that the same man is meant. 5 In 1822, the "Texas Association" of Davidson County, Tennessee, made application to the Mexican government for a grant of land and permission to settle a colony in Texas. This Tennessee land company was originally composed of seventy-four members, most of whom were business and pro- fessional men of Nashville. Robert Leftwich and Andrew Erwin carried the company's petition to Mexico, but the delays of the business were so vexing that Erwin returned to Tennessee, leaving Leftwich to push the application through the red tape of the Mexican government. On April 15, 1825, he was successful in getting n contract to settle 800 families in the Brazos River basin west of the Bexar-Nacogdoches road. Since the Mexican colonization law made no provision for a corporate empresario, Leftwich took out the contract in his own name, and this grant is therefore called the "Leftwich Grant"; but his associates were disappointed and surprised upon his return to Nashville not to find the grant in the name of the com- pany, and difficulty arose over the matter. Finally, it was agreed that Left- wich should convey his contract to the company, but that he should serve
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