USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume I > Part 27
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72
176
HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
affecting the adverse rights of any other person." In a suit growing out of contested water rights on this claim, carried to the New Mexico Supreme Court in 1891, it was shown that the claim had been made that Ortiz died intestate in 1848, leaving no direct heirs, but that prior to the suit referred to the collateral heirs had sold the property to Elias Brevoort. Suit was instituted in 1883 and ran through the courts eight years. It was shown that the widow of Ortiz remained in actual possession until 1853, when Grenier took possession and heid it until he conveyed to Sherman et al., and then to the New Mexico Mining Company.
June 28, 1819, the governor of New Mexico, then a province of Mexico, granted to Antonio Ortiz a large tract of land on the Gallinas river, in San Miguel county, containing 163,921.68 acres. March 3, 1869, the United States Congress confirmed the grant to Ortiz' heirs; patent issued to them by the United States in 1883. Future conveyances gave land to Wilson Waddingham, of Connecticut, Louis Sulzbacher, T. B. Catron, John Dold, Henry Dold and Mary Dold, all in undivided interests. Some of the assignees of the heirs of Antonio Ortiz, claiming interest in the whole grant, occupied it almost continuously from about 1860, having permanent ranches and buildings.
PRESTON BECK GRANT .- December 6, 1823, Juan Estevan Pino peti- tioned the governor of the province of New Mexico for a grant of lands now a portion of San Miguel county, bounded as follows: "On the north by the landmarks of the farm or land of Don Antonio Ortiz and the table- land of the Aguage de la Yequa; on the south by the Pecos river; on the east by the tableland of Pajarito, and on the west by the point of the tableland of the Chupaines." The grant was made December 23 of the same year, the land officially designated as the "Hacienda of San Juan Baptista del Ojito del Rio de las Gallinis," and Pino was put in possession, occupying it until his death. His heirs afterward sold the grant to Pres- ton Beck, and upon the recommendation of the surveyor-general Congress confirmed it to Preston Beck, Jr., June 21, 1860.
RAMIREZ GRANT .- In February, 1844, the governor of the Province of New Mexico granted to Jose Serafin Ramirez a tract of land in Santa Fé county, described as follows: "Bounded on the north by the Placer road that goes down by the yellow timber; on the south, the northern boundary of the San Pedro grant; on the east, the spring of the Cañon del Agua; on the west, the summit of the mountain of the mine known as the property of your petitioner." This grant was afterward con- firmed by Congress upon the approval of the surveyor-general of New Mexico.
The San Pedro and Cañon del Agua Company, in future litigation to determine its title to mining lands located within the limits of this grant, raised the contention that portions of the land were the rightful property of the United States government, as thev contained valuable timber and mineral lands; that as early as 1842 there was, within the territory cov- ered by the grant, a flourishing town, containing thousands of inhabitants, called "Real de San Francisco," which for many years had enjoyed such rights and privileges as excluded the Mexican government from making a grant within one league of the borders of the city; and that the mines on the grant had been worked for many years before the territory was ceded to the United States. The company sought to quiet its title to the mining
177
LAND GRANTS
lands it was operating, and the court in the first judicial district decided in its favor. The case was taken to the supreme court (the action being that of the United States vs. The San Pedro and Canon del Agua Com- pany), which, in one of the most elaborate opinions ever accompanying a decision rendered by that body, found that the San Pedro and Cañon del Agua Company was not an innocent purchaser, being fully cognizant of the definite character of the grant to Ramirez. But when the lands con- tained within the limits of this grant passed, by its cession, under the dominion of the United States government, the title to such mineral lands as were to be found on the grant became vested in the United States government. Ramirez had no claim to any more interest than he had ob- tained by virtue of the grant. It was only the right in the land which had passed to him by the terms of the grant. The Spanish and Mexican governments reserved the right to the minerals in their lands, unless other- wise stipulated, and no such express grant was made to Ramirez. Though this grant was confirmed by our Congress, upon favorable report of the surveyor-general of the Territory, the latter officer has never been em- powered to convey the gold and silver mines belonging to the general government, or to recommend their conveyance. And the grant to Ramirez, as is the case in other grants, gave him the right to the surface of the land only.
SANDOVAL GRANT (OR NOLAN), VALENCIA COUNTY .- This grant was made in 1845 by the Mexican government to Antonio Sandoval, who after- ward conveyed same to Gervacio Nolan. The latter died in 1858, and his heirs sold the entire grant to Joel P. Whitney, who afterward conveyed a half interest to Franklin H. Story. The grant was reported to con- tain about three thousand acres, and the title held by Nolan's legal represent- atives was found to be perfect. In a case brought to the supreme court of New Mexico, on a homesteader's claim, it was determined that the action of surveyor-general's decision as to validity or invalidity of grants was beyond power of supreme court to change, and the legal effect of sur- veyor-general's action in declaring title valid was "to segregate from the public domain all the lands covered by the grant as reported on by him, and to except and reserve them from the operation of the homestead and other general laws of the United States providing for the disposal of the public domain."
MAXWELL LAND GRANT .- From the days when the historic Manor of Rensselaerwick flourished up to the closing years of the Mexican occupa- tion and control of what is now the American Territory of New Mexico- a period covering about two centuries-attempts at planting and, with a legal status, maintaining quasi-feudal estates were signalized by dismal failure. It remained for Lucien Benjamin Maxwell, a native of Kaskaskia, Illinois, and one of the most striking figures of the early mountain frontier, to found a second successful American barony. This was the famous "Maxwell Ranch," or "Maxwell Land Grant," as it is more commonly known in these days, a body of land which, under the shrewd manipulation of capitalists and politicians, has grown in half a century from a rela- tively insignificant thirty odd square miles, located principally on the plains bordering upon the Red river, in northern New Mexico, to an estate equal in extent to three states the size of Rhode Island.
January 8, 1841, Charles Hipolyte Trotier-Beaubien and Guadalupe Vol. I. 12
178
HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
Miranda petitioned General Don Manuel Armijo, the civil and military governor of New Mexico, for a grant of land in that portion of the Terri- tory which was included within the limits of the present county of Colfax. The petitioners asked for a tract "commencing below the junction of the Rayado and Red rivers, from thence in a direct line to the east to the first hills, from thence following the course of Red River in a northerly direc- tion of Una de Gato with Red river, from whence following along said hills to the east of the Una de Gato river to the summit of the tableland (mesa), from whence, turning northwest, following said summit to the summit of the mountain which separates the waters of the rivers which run towards the east from those which run to the west, from thence following the sum- mit of said mountain in a southerly direction to the first hill east of the Rayado river; from thence following along the brow of said hill to the place of beginning."
On January II following, Governor Armijo, "in conformity with the laws," granted the land to the petitioners, with the privilege of making such use of it as they saw proper. On February 22, 1843, they were placed in possession of the grant by Cornelio Vigil, a justice of the peace of the first precinct of Taos. On February 27, 1844, the grant was suspended by Mariano Chavez, acting governor, upon a complaint made by Antonio Jose Martinez, priest in charge of the Roman Catholic parish of Taos, and the chiefs of the pueblo of Taos, who charged that the land in question, com- monly known as "el rincon del Rio Colorado," had previously been granted or assigned by these Indians to Charles Bent, afterward governor of New Mexico; that the land was recognized as commons, where the stock of the Indians was pastured; that it was likewise the place where buffalo was limited (a palpable contradiction), and finally that the grantees, Beaubien and Miranda, were foreigners.
In the meantime Armijo had been reappointed to the office of gov- ernor. On April 18, 1844, he referred the matter to the department as- sembly, which reversed the order of Acting Governor Chavez and ap- proved the grant made by Armijo. On the same day Beaubien and Miranda were reinstated and retained undisputed possession of the grant. In 1857 William Pelham, surveyor-general of New Mexico, to whom the matter of establishing title to the grant had been referred, reported to Congress that in his opinion it was "a good and valid grant, according to the laws and cus- toms of the government of the Republic of Mexico and the decision of the supreme court of the United States."
The petition of Beaubien and Miranda to Governor Armijo is a docu- ment worthy of preservation as illustrating the mode of procedure and the grounds on which applications for private grants of land were made in those days. It reads as follows :
"Most Excellent Sir :- The undersigned, Mexican citizens and resi- dents of this place in the most approved manner required by law, state . That of all the departments of the republic, with the exception of the Californias, New Mexico is one of the most backward in intelligence, in- dustry, manufactures, etc., and surely few others present the natural ad- vantages to be found therein, not only on account of its abundance of water. forests, wood and useful timber, but also on account of the fertility of the soil, containing within its bosom rich and precious metals, which up to
179
LAND GRANTS
this time are useless for the want of enterprising men who will convert to the advantage of other men all of which productions of nature are sus- ceptible of being used for the benefit of society in the department, as well as in the entire republic, if they were in the hands of individuals who would work and improve them. An old and true adage says that `what is the business of all is the business of none'; therefore, while the fertile lands in New Mexico, where, without contradiction, nature has proven herself more generous, are not reduced to private property, where it will be im- proved, it will be of no benefit to the department, which abounds in idle people, who, for the want of occupations, are a burden to the industrious portions of society, which with their labor thev could contribute to its welfare and honestly comply with their obligations. Idleness, the mother of vice, is the cause of the increase of crimes which are daily being com- mitted, notwithstanding the severity of the laws and their rigid execu- tion. The towns are overrun with thieves and murderers, who by this means alone procure their subsistence. We think it a difficult task to re- form the present generation, accustomed to idleness and hardened vice. But the rising one, receiving new impressions, will easily be guided by the principles of purer morality. The welfare of a nation consists in the possession of lands which produce all the necessaries of life without requiring those of other nations, and it cannot be denied that New Mexico possesses this great advantage, and only requires industrious hands to make it a happy residence. This is the age of progress and the march of intellect, and they are so rapid that we may expect, at a day not far distant, that they will reach even us. Under the above conviction we both request your excellency to be pleased to grant us a tract of land for the purpose of improving it, without injury to any third party, and raising sugar beets, which we believe will grow well and produce an abundant crop, and in time to establish manufactories of cotton and wool, and raising stock of every description. [Here follows a description of the tract sought, agreeing in its details with the description in the foregoing.] For the reasons above expressed, and being the heads of large families, we humbly pray your excellency to take our joint petition under consid- eration, and be pleased to grant us the land petitioned for, by doing which we will receive grace and justice. We swear it is not done in malice; we protest good faith, and whatever may be necessary, etc.
"GUADALUPE MIRANDA,
"CARLOS BEAUBIEN.
"Santa Fé, January 8, 1841."
In their reply to the petition of Father Martinez and his asso- ciates the grantees urged that the land described by those who denied the validity of the grant was not the land asked for in the original petition, but that it "does not exceed fifteen or eighteen" leagues.
On securing possession of their grant, Beaubien and Miranda en- tered into a partnership for the operation of this grant, the former finally purchasing of Miranda his interest therein, holding the entire property until 1846. In the latter year he removed from Taos, which had been his home for twenty-three years, to the Cimarroncito, and found Maxwell located a short distance north of the famous Abreu ranch, where a company of
180
HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
United States soldiers were stationed for the protection of traffic over the Santa Fé trail.
At this time Maxwell was herding sheep in a primitive way. About a hundred and fifty yards south of his rude adobe hut stood a house built by Kit Carson and then occupied by him. The two men, having much in common-both lovers of the free, adventurous life which the mountains offered-soon became fast friends and remained so until death separated them. Maxwell's sheep multiplied, and as the years rolled by his wealth increased so rapidly that, in spite of his profligacy, he could not rid himself of the burden it seemed to impose. He tried gambling, but, although it is said that he never "stacked the cards," his poker playing served only to add to his accumulation of treasure.
At this time the whole region between "El Pueblo," in Colorado, and Fernando de Taos, in New Mexico, was almost unknown-certainly un- explored, excepting those portions traversed by the few traders traveling between Santa Fé and the Missouri river. But every trader, every major domo, every teamster, every soldier who passed over this part of the trail knew Maxwell, and most of them were known to him by name.
Charles Beaubien died February 10, 1864, and Maxwell purchased the grant of the heirs, becoming its sole proprietor. All restrictions as to the grazing of sheep now being removed, his wealth increased at a still greater rate. He had built for himself a great house at Cimarron, and here he continued to entertain all comers in lavish style-and there were many. During the height of his power and wealth he lived in barbaric splendor. He lived for pleasure alone, in utter disregard of the expense of the necessities and comforts of life. Under his indifferent direction thou- sands of acres of his grant were cultivated in a most primitive fashion by native Mexicans, who, though as completely enslaved as the thralls of the ancient Norsemen, were nevertheless kindly treated. They loved their master as a friend and kindly adviser, and never appealed to him for ameli- oration of their condition in vain-provided the lord of the domain did not shrewdly suspect them of misrepresentation.
Maxwell's home was as much of a palace as the day and the coun- try afforded. Some of its apartments were most sumptuously furnished after the prevailing Mexican style, while others were devoid of all but table, chairs and cards for poker, or "old sledge." He was an inveterate gambler. On occasions when his winnings were heavy he would some- times lend to the winner the next day two or three times as much as he had won for him. Though he played for amusement only, he always insisted upon a stake. Many men who were widely known throughout the southwest in those days were his guests, and most of them had cause to remember his prowess at the game of "draw." Kit Carson, ex-Governor Thomas Boggs, Richens (Uncle Dick) Wootton, Don Jesus Abreu, Colonel Ceran St. Vrain and other men whose names are well known in the pio- neer history of the Santa Fé trail, made his home a rendezvous for years. He was a great lover of horses and frequently made enormous wagers on the results of races. He owned some of the most finely bred and fleetest horses in the west, and reposed great confidence in their abilities to win.
The rooms devoted to. the culinary department of Maxwell's great house-the kitchen and two dining rooms, one for the men and one for
The Historic Maxwell Mansion, Cimarron
181
LAND GRANTS
the women-were detached from the main residence. Men who visited him rarely saw women about the house. "Only the quick rustle of a skirt, a hurried view of a rebosa as its wearer, evanescent as the lightning, flashed for an instant before some window or half-opened door, told of their presence," wrote one of Maxwell's guests in later years. His table service was, for the most part, of solid silver. Covers were daily laid for over two dozen persons, and vacant chairs were rarely to be seen. In addition to his invited guests, many forced themselves upon him as the result of his widely-advertised hospitality to all comers; others came to him through necessity, as the result of the location of his home on the main line of travel into the Territory, at the point where the ascent of the mountain range to the west began. Coach-loads of passengers were frequently flood-bound at the ford in the Cimarron at that point and com- pelled to remain at his home until the subsiding waters permitted a con- tinuance of the journey.
Maxwell always kept a large amount of money, from twenty-five to fifty thousand dollars-usually in gold and silver coin-in an old bureau standing in the main room of his home. The drawers were never locked and no precautions for its protection were ever taken. This money was the proceeds of the sale of his sheep, cattle and grain, principally to the army, at figures which would stagger a purchaser today. For years he made no effort to keep track of the number of his sheep or the amount of his wool clip.
When this American feudal lord was not at home. entertaining his friends he was visiting others. He loved to travel in state. He owned almost every conceivable style of vehicle, but on his longer journeys, as when going to Taos, Santa Fé or Las Vegas, he usually traveled in a great thoroughbrace Concord coach, drawn by six or eight horses. Men who are living today and who accompanied him on some of these journeys say that he made it a rule to take small arroyos and irrigating ditches at a gallop, regardless of consequences to his equipage.
One instance will serve to illustrate Maxwell's nerve. On July 4, 1867, he caused to be hauled from its place under the cottonwood trees that fringed his home an ancient howitzer, which had lain there since the day the valiant General Don Manuel Armijo learned of the approach of Kearny's band of "ragamuffins." With the assistance of a captain in the regular army, stationed at the barracks near by, he loaded this gun two- thirds of the way to the muzzle and prepared for a grand salute in honor of the nation's birthday. A premature discharge occurred, blowing off the captain's arm, destroying his eye and shattering Maxwell's thumb. A soldier was at once ordered to Fort Union, nearly sixty miles distant, which he covered in four hours, his horse, one of the fleetest in Max- well's stables, dropping dead as the rider alighted at the fort. The sur- geon arrived at Cimarron in time to save the captain's life and dressed Maxwell's thumb. A few days later the latter, accompanied by Kit Car- son, traveled to the fort to ask the surgeon to amputate the thumb, which was causing Maxwell great suffering. Declining anesthetics in any form, he maintained an apparently stolid indifference to the great pain resulting from the operation; then, just after the ligatures had been tied, as Carson placed a glass of whisky to his lips, he fainted.
A few weeks after this disastrous celebration gold was discovered
182
HISTORY OF NEW MEXICO
on the Maxwell grant at what is known at Elizabethtown. The announce- ment was naturally followed by a great influx of adventurers from all parts of the country and scientific prospecting by representatives of capital. The discovery of the precious metal in easily worked placer fields marked the beginning of the end of Maxwell's baronial reign. Feeling secure in his possession of the grant, a region of vaster extent than some of the kingdoms of Europe, and anticipating untold wealth from the de- velopment of the mining properties at the base of Mount Baldy, he spent a fortune in the construction of a ditch forty miles long, extending from the source of the Red river to the new placer diggings. But this un- dertaking was a stupendous failure, the water entering the ditch at its head being lost by evaporation and seepage before it reached the proposed field of operations. Realizing the fact that his title to this addition to his grant could find no status in the law, however valid his original grant might be, Maxwell endeavored to keep the news of the discovery of gold from obtaining too wide a circulation, but in this he was un- successful. Litigation to determine titles to the squatters' claims fol- lowed, and in order to save what he might from his now decaying fortune he sold his title to the grant to an English syndicate for a million and a quarter dollars, through the agency of Wilson Wadding- ham, David H. Moffatt and J. B. Chaffee. These men retained six hun- dred thousand dollars for their services, turning over the remainder to Maxwell.
The deposed "monarch of all he surveyed," whose right there had been none to dispute until 1867, was in a state of perplexity as to what he should do with his money. But he soon found plenty of advisers, and at the behest of men in whom he appeared to have confidence he in- vested something like a quarter of a million in the bonds of the Texas Pacific railroad, which proved a complete loss. In 1870 other advisers suggested to him that it would be profitable to establish a bank in Santa Fé, inasmuch as there was at that time no banking house in either New Mexico or Arizona. The idea appealed to him, and he applied for a char- ter, with a capital of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars, furnishing all the money himself and dividing ten shares among a sufficient num- ber of his friends to constitute the directory required by law. Thus was the First National Bank of Santa Fe founded in December, 1870. The original stock certificates of this bank were unique in one respect, bear- ing a vignette of Maxwell with a cigar in his mouth. So great was his confidence in his friends that he signed in blank more than a hundred of these stock certificates, in order that his absence at his home might not in- terfere with their anticipated sale.
Maxwell was a man of unbounded generosity and possessed unlim- ited confidence in those in whom he trusted at all. His charities must have amounted to a considerable fortune. Jolin Burroughs has aptly described certain frontier characters as "wild civilized men." The description fits Maxwell. He was one of the best representatives of the undefiled frontier, before the days of the "bad man," a type which passed with the extinction of the frontier in its original purity. He was eccentric, im- provident in the extreme, liberal to a degree that was widely remarked, even in those days of extreme liberality and good fellowship, a man who was a marvel among his fellows. Those who knew him best-Carson,
183
LAND GRANTS
St. Vrain, Beaubien, the Abreus, Pley and a multitude of American trad- ers and native Mexicans-found him the object of undying affection. The solitude of the mountains and the remoteness from scenes of civilization in- fatuated him. His love for the wild was unconquerable. Though rough in manner and quick to resent the slightest interference with what he con- sidered as his sovereign rights, there was nothing of the desperado about him.
Maxwell's wife was Luz Beaubien, a daughter of one of the original proprietors of his grant. Three of their nine children are living. The last years of his life were spent at Fort Sumner, New Mexico, where he died in comparative poverty, July 25, 1875. Strange as it may seem, there is in existence no monument to the memory of this most striking figure of the mountain frontier period, nor to the memory of his chief friend and com- panion, Kit Carson.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.