4/12/1758: Compromise leads to oldest land grant in Texas
On this day in 1758, LuÃs Antonio Menchaca and Andrés Hernández resolved a title dispute involving Menchaca's San Francisco ranch.
Their compromise resulted in the oldest recorded private land grant in Texas. The grant, recorded in the General Land Office, consisted of a total of fifteen leagues and seven labores in present-day Karnes and Wilson counties, of which eleven leagues and two labores went to Menchaca and four leagues and five labores to Hernández. More is known of Menchaca's life than of Hernández's. Menchaca was born in 1713, the son of a career soldier, and died in 1793. He was a captain in the Spanish military and also served as justicia mayor of the villa of San Fernando. The census of 1779 showed him to be the richest man in the province of Texas. The dates of Hernández's birth and death are unknown, but he was for many years a soldier at San Antonio de Béxar Presidio. At the time of the grant, he made sworn statements to the effect that he had been living on the site for more than five years by virtue of a grant of four sitios and eight caballerÃas of land which had been made to his deceased father more than twenty-two years previously. It is possible that this was the site of the first ranch in Texas. Hernández's ranch headquarters was in the same locale as Fuerte de Santa Cruz del CÃbolo.
4/12/1836: Mexican forces under Santa Anna capture key Brazos crossing
On this day in 1836, Mexican forces under General Santa Anna captured Thompson's Ferry, on the Brazos River between San Felipe and Fort Bend.
As Sam Houston's army retreated eastward, a rear-guard under Moseley Baker at San Felipe and Wyly Martin at Fort Bend sought to prevent the Mexicans from crossing the Brazos. At Thompson's Ferry on April 12, Mexican colonel Juan N. Almonte hailed the ferryman, who was on the east bank. Probably thinking that Almonte was a countryman who had been left behind during the retreat, the ferryman poled the ferry across to the west bank. Santa Anna and his staff, who had been hiding in nearby bushes, sprang out and captured the ferry. By this means the Mexican Centralists accomplished a bloodless crossing of the Brazos, which they completed by April 14. The Texan forces at Fort Bend and San Felipe were forced to abandon their defenses and join the rest of Houston's army in retreat. The Texans did not turn on their pursuers until April 21, when they destroyed Santa Anna's army at San Jacinto.
Topic: 4/12/2024 A Two Fer! (Read 21 times)