PBA Galleries

Printed folio document, approximately 31x20.4 cm. (12¼x8"). With lithograph map of part of Texas, approximately 7.5x10 cm. (3x4"), depicting the land grant and adjoining "Austin's Colony."

An original land scrip certificate for 177 acres of Texas land in the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company's empresario tract, located between San Jacinto and Sabine Rivers, granted to W.B. Bolles. The document is signed in ink by Company officers Anthony Dey, W.H. Sumner, G.W. Curtis, and W.H. Willson, endorsed on verso by bondholder Bolles. The empresarios in this case were Joseph Vehlein, David G. Burnet and Lorenzo de Zavala. Zavala had an interesting career, having served in a variety of political and diplomatic posts before abandoning the Mexican government to join the Texas insurgents in 1835, eventually serving as the first vice president of the Republic of Texas. The Galveston Bay & Texas Land Company was founded in New York in 1830 for the purpose of colonizing the area in East Texas east of the San Jacinto River and south of a line running twenty leagues north of Nacogdoches, some 3,743,163 acres. Notable here is the small but detailed printed map on the certificate which outlines the lands of the empresario grant, showing as well part of "Austin's Colony", also the Road from Bexar, San Felipe de Austin, Galveston Bay, Galveston Island, Nacogdoches and Natchitoches in Louisiana are located as well. "An early Texas land promotion" - Streeter. See Handbook of Texas. Streeter Texas 1117. Streeter Sale 304