Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 3, Number 3, September 1993 Page: 126
[68] p. : ports. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal
the congress passed An Act to detect fraudulent Land Certificates, and to provide for
issuing patents to legal claimants. The act created two boards of general commissioners,
one to operate east of the Brazos River, the other west. The boards, which came to be
known as the travelling boards of land commissioners, were to visit each county and
audit the work of the county board of land commissioners. After examining records and
hearing appropriate testimony, they were to recommend for approval by the General
Land Office "such certificates as they find to be genuine and legal." Certificates that they
failed to recommend became operatively invalid.12 The travelling board recommended
that all but six of the certificates issued in Colorado County be approved in their original
form, and one of those six, that granted to Gideon G. Williams, be approved in altered
form. One of the men whose certificate was rejected, John Sutherland, secured his land
grant by joint resolution of the Senate and the House of Representatives of the Republic
of Texas on January 22, 1845.13
Whether through misinformation or fraudulent intent, five years after the
travelling board completed its business, one man sued the state on the grounds that his
certificate for one-third of a league had been rejected improperly by the travelling board.
Elisha H. Williams filed the suit on September 26, 1846. Though he died soon after, his
heirs kept the suit alive and, on March 31, 1847, were awarded one-third of a league
by the district court.14 Evidently the court did not know and was not made aware that
the original certificate, contrary to what Williams had claimed in his petition, had not been
rejected at all by the travelling board. His heirs, thus, by virtue of the court's decree and,
apparently, of the valid original certificate, ended up with two-thirds of a league.15
The law that created the county boards of land commissioners specified that
the boards were to consist of three members, that they could begin meeting on the first
Thursday in January 1838, that they should remain convened until all business was
concluded, and that they should meet every other Thursday for the first three months
of their existence.16 The Colorado County Board of Land Commissioners met for the first
time on January 18, 1838 and remained in session through January 25, however, only
two commissioners, William W. W. Thompson and Williamson Daniels, were present. At
their first meeting, they granted 37 certificates, all to settlers who demonstrated that
they had resided in Texas before March 2, 1836. Their second meeting began just one
week after their first closed, on February 1, 1838. They stayed on the schedule
mandated by the law, with one slight variation, for their first five meetings, but convened
for the sixth time one week behind schedule.
At each meeting, Robert Brotherton, secretary to the board, dutifully
recorded the business it conducted. The book he and his successors kept, of value to
both historians and genealogists, is now known as the Book of Land Certificates and
remains available to the public in the Office of the County Clerk at the courthouse in
12 See Gammel, volume 2, pp. 313-317.
13 See Abstract of Land Certificates Reported as Genuine and Legalby the Travelling Commission-
ers Appointed Under the "Act to Detect Fraudulent Land Certificates; Passed January 18, 1840" (Austin:
Crueger and Wing, 1841) for list of those recommended by the board of land commissioners. The joint
resolution awarding land to John Sutherland appears in Gammel, volume 2, p. 1072.
14 See Cause File 454 and Transcribed Minutes A & B, p. 325, Office of the District Clerk, Colorado
County, Texas. The latter source provides the verdict of the court as well as the fact that Williams had died.
15 See Abstract of Land Certificates Reported as Genuine and Legalby the Travelling Commission-
ers Appointed Under the "Act to Detect Fraudulent Land Certificates; Passed January 18, 1840" (Austin:
Crueger and Wing, 1841, also available in manuscript form at the General Land Office in Austin) for verification
that Williams' certificate had been recommended for approval, and the relevant files in the land office for
confirmation that three tracts of land totalling two-thirds of a league were patented in his name.
16 See Gammel, volume 1, pp. 1409, 1417.126
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Nesbitt Memorial Library. Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 3, Number 3, September 1993, periodical, September 1993; Columbus, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth151389/m1/18/?q=nesbitt%20memorial%20library%20journal: accessed April 30, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nesbitt Memorial Library.