About a month ago, the library\’s archives received some documents from the President\’s Vault pertaining to the history of Tarleton State University.

This is the 1861 patent for some of the land that became part of Tarleton\’s estate, the sale of which helped create John Tarleton Agricultural College .  This describes a 1605-acre parcel in Erath and Palo Pinto Counties (click on all images to view them larger):

The certificate describes the boundaries of the \”Nine and 060.000/1000.000 labors of land, situated and described as follows:  In Palo Pinto County, on the waters of Buck and Sunday Creeks.  Tributaries of the Brazos River, about 18 ½ miles S. 19° E. from the Town of Palo Pinto.  Known as Survey No. 36.\”  Actually, though, most of the land is in Erath County.

A labor was a Spanish land unit measuring 177.1 acres, so 9.06 labors is equal to 1604.526 acres.

Here is a map of the land it refers to – it\’s the part outlined in purple.  There are two parcels in Survey #36, 1407 acres (designated G. W. Treighen A-758 on the map) in Erath County, and a smaller 198-acre parcel (designated G. W. Treighen A-1937 on the map) in Palo Pinto County.  This map was created using the Land/Lease Mapping Viewer of the Texas General Land Office.

Glued to the bottom-right edge of the certificate pictured above is a Certificate of Record, showing that the information on the patent certificate \”was duly and correctly recorded…., on the 9th day of May 1877…., in [Deed] Record Book H Page 415\” of Erath County.

The land grant process in Texas (both as a Republic and in early statehood) involved three basic steps.

First, individuals received a land certificate for a specified amount of land if certain qualifications were met.  Texas created a variety of programs with different qualifications for land.  Land grant certificates were not issued for a specific tract of land. After a certificate was issued, it was the responsibility of the certificate holder to find vacant public land, obtain a survey, and apply for the patent.

A grantee (the person who was originally awarded the land certificate) could transfer (assign) the land certificate to another individual (called the assignee), by sale or gift. As a result, many people who received land certificates did not actually settle on the tract of land which bears their name, as those tracts were named for the original grantee.

Next, the grantee or the assignee would locate available land from the public domain. It did not have to be in the same county where the certificate was issued.  Using the certificate, a grantee or assignee could have the desired land surveyed. The field notes were sent to the Texas General Land Office and filed.

Finally, after fulfilling any conditions of the particular land grant program, such as making improvements to the land, and paying any required fees, the individual could then apply for a patent from the Texas General Land Office.  Once that patent was issued, this person was referred to as the patentee.

So George W. Treighen was the original grantee, but the certificate was apparently \”transferred by said Treighen to C. S. Brown May 1st 1845, by him transferred to Jno. D. Brown January 3rd 1854, by him transferred to said Tarleton March 24, 1859.\”  John Tarleton was the final assignee, who found available land, had it surveyed, and then did what he needed to do by September 20, 1861, to get the land patent.