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Tlee Knights of Colttmbus Hiswrical Co-mmission
who as will be noted later, were to play an important part in the work of the Commission. The writing of the history of the Catholic Church in Texas was an entirely new venture, and for that reason not much material of any importance had been collected for the publication of such a work. The immensity of the labors and the effort required to gather all this material was quite well realized by the members of this commission. Dr. Guilday was of the opinion that after spending at least five years in assembling the material, another full year would be required to compile such data, "winnowing the wheat from the chaff." Another year could well be spent in analyzing and arranging the material gathered, and only then could the actual writing of the history begin. Since Texas had for centuries been under the rule of Spain, and for a short time was a part of the Mexican Republic, many documents of especially the Spanish period had been filed at San Antonio de Bexar, the capital, so to speak, of the Province of Texas, as the State was known during that early period. This collection of documents became known as the Bexar archives, and contained literally thousands of hand-written reports, regulations, and correspondence of all government officials, and also the reports of church officials and friars laboring on the frontier. In more recent years this vast collection was entrusted to the University of Texas, and the Historical Commission was given free access to this most valuable storehouse of early Texas history. There were other important archives within the State which needed to be investigated such as those in the care of the State Library, and those of Nacogdoches. Important papers were known to exist in the archives of Mexico City, Saltillo, Queretaro, Zacatecas, and Guadalajara, and these would have to be visited. Across the sea there were vast collections of documents dealing with Texas at Salamanca, Madrid, Seville, all in Spain. To make the projected study an absolutely complete study of the Church in Texas, these various archives also would have to be visited by a researcher. This stupendous task of accumulating copies of all documents thought necessary for this study would not only involve much time and study, but it would require a great outlay of money, and the Knights of Columbus had now pledged themselves to pay for it. When the work was first undertaken it was estimated that the production of the history would cost about $75,000.00. Without much loss of time Father Foik and his assistants were busy making photostatic copies of documents in the Bexar Archives at Austin. Arrangements were made to procure additional documents from the
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