USA > New Mexico > History of New Mexico : its resources and people, Volume I > Part 28
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Under the act of June 21, 1860, the commissioner of the general land office at Washington, on June 28, 1869, authorized T. Rush Spencer, then surveyor general of New Mexico, to proceed with the work of surveying the Beaubien and Miranda grant under the practical direction of William W. Griffin, deputy surveyor, after the secretary of the interior had passed upon the matter. "I have to draw your special attention," wrote the commissioner, "to the question as to the true locus of the proposed survey. The exterior boundaries referred to in the papers forming the basis of action by the surveyor general in 1857 being vague, we are unable to identify on the maps in this office with certainty, yet as near as we can form from them an idea they would include a much larger area than the maximum of eleven square leagues which Mexican governors were em- powered to grant, as has been repeatedly ruled by the United States Supreme Court."
On December 31, 1869, I. D. Coxe, secretary of the interior, in a letter to the commissioner of the general land office, taking up the matter of the appeal of Lucien B. Maxwell from the decision of the commissioner as to the survey, states that the only evidence in his office as to the extent of the tract "is contained in a statement to the Mexican authorities made by Beaubien, one of the original grantees, that the whole quantity claimed by them did not exceed fifteen or eighteen square leagues. By the statement of the counsel for the parties in interest, as well as from the other evidence you have adduced, it appears that under this grant a tract of land is now claimed containing upwards of four hundred and fifty square leagues, or over two millions of acres." The report of the Senate committee of private land claims, made May 19, 1860, which was accepted and carried out by Congress, the secretary continued, "fixed, in the case of the claim of Scolly and others, the interpretation of the Spanish measurement by leagues, towit, that the phrase 'cinco leguas cuadradas' must be interpreted to mean five square leagues, and not five leagues square, and so in like cases. In the case of the claim of Vigil and St. Vrain, they also declare that 'under the Mexican colonization law of 1824 and regulations of 1828 the extreme quantity allowed to be granted by the governor to any colonist was eleven square leagues.' *
* * As these rules for the interpretation of a grant which would otherwise be vague are contained in the very report under which the grant in question was confirmed, there can be no hesitation in applying them to this grant, and to determine that it was the purpose and
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intent of Congress to confirm the grant to Beaubien and Miranda to an extent not greater than eleven square leagues to each claimant. * *
* Where a Mexican colonization grant is confirmed without measurements of boundaries or of distinct specification of the quantity confirmed, * * * no greater quantity than eleven square leagues to each claimant shall be surveyed and set off to them. * * In this case two such tracts of eleven square leagues are held to be covered by the grant, and may be
surveyed accordingly. * * * I feel the less hesitation in coming to this conclusion because I find in the original papers accompanying the report of the congressional committee, that prior to the cession of New Mexico to the United States the right of the claimants to this tract had been dis- puted upon the ground (among others) that a much larger tract was claimed by them than had been intended to be conveyed by the Mexican government ; that it was in reply to this objection that Beaubien had de- clared that their grant did not exceed fifteen or eighteen leagues, and re- ferred to judicial certificates accompanying his statement for proof of such limitation of his claim. After obtaining a grant upon so explicit a state- ment of the amount claimed, it would be, in my judgment, a gross fraud upon the government to allow it to be extended to the enormous quantity of four hundred and fifty leagues or upwards, and, in view of the fact that in Mr. Benjamin's report it was declared that a pretense of an application for a grant of one hundred square leagues in the Scolly case would have been 'too extravagant for belief,' it cannot be presumed that Congress intended to confirm a grant of the enormous character now claimed, unless the description of the tract itself and the measure of the boundaries were so given as to show definitely and explicitly the quantity intended to be conveyed."
In view of this decision, Maxwell withdrew his application for the survey of the grant, all his rights in which he had assigned to the Maxwell Land Grant and Railway Company. Secretary Delano of the interior de- partment refused to reverse the decision of his predecessor, leaving the parties to congressional or such other relief as they might be able to obtain.
On March 16, 1876, the commissioner of the land office directed Henry M. Atkinson, then surveyor general, to notify the claimants "to select the twenty-two square leagues of land, by legal subdivisions, in satisfaction of their claim, as reduced by the decision of the honorable secretary of the interior, dated December 31, 1869."
In 1877 and 1878 a number of men who had settled upon land lying ' outside of the boundaries of the original grant sent to the surveyor general written protests against the extension of the boundaries to the extent that their lands would be included within the boundaries of the grant.
When the last private survey was made under Maxwell's directions, the surveyor general of the New Mexico reported to the commissioner of the general land office that "the claimants under Beaubien and Miranda have surveyed inside the grant some thirty townships and subdivided them." By this survey the area of the grant was increased from the original claim of not to exceed eighteen leagues to something in excess of one thousand square miles.
When the matter was referred to George H. Williams, attorney general of the United States, for his opinion, in 1872, the latter wrote: "It makes 110 difference what were the powers or proceedings of the Mexican authori-
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ties; if Congress knew that there were more than twenty-two leagues in the tract, or, if avowing their ignorance and indifference, they made the grant by metes and bounds, there is an end of controversy as to the title of the land within said metes and bounds.
* It is only 'in the absence of any other guide' that the restriction to 'eleven square leagues' was applied. *
* * Plain, practical and sensible men in reading the act of Congress making this grant would have no doubt that it surveyed the land within the plainly specified metes and bounds."
A somewhat surprising feature of the papers on file in the office of the surveyor general of New Mexico is the fact that the paper alleging to be a certificate of James K. Proudfit, surveyor general from 1872 to 1786, to the effect that the printed copy of the report of Surveyor General Pelham is "a true and correct copy and transcript as taken from the original archives, records and files in my office of the original grant of land made by the Mexican government to Charles Beaubien and Guadalupe Miranda, as also of the sworn transaction thereof now in file in my office," and the accompanying attestation as to the genuineness of Proudfit's signa- ture, made by the secretary of the Territory, were not signed by either of these officials, but attached to the papers in question in blank.
September 12, 1859, Alfred Bent, Estefina Hicklin and Teresina Bent, · children of Charles Bent, first governor of New Mexico, and Alexander Hicklin, husband of Estefina Hicklin, instituted in Taos county a bill in equity against Guadalupe Miranda, Charles Beaubien, Lucien B. Max- well and Joseph Pley, part owners of the property then known as the Beaubien and Miranda, or Maxwell, land grant, alleging that Charles Bent was, in his lifetime, by virtue of a certain parol agreement with Beaubien and Miranda, entitled to the undivided one-third of this grant. Upon Governor Bent's death in 1847, the three mentioned, his sole heirs, brought action to recover their alleged rights. Pending this suit, Beaubien died, and his heirs were made a party to the suit. Teresina Bent in the mean- time married Aloys Scheurich, who also became a party thereto. June 3, 1865, the court declared these three heirs of Governor Bent to be absolutely entitled to the undivided one-fourth part of the grant and confirmed their title to this portion of the grant. Before the partition of the land had been effected Alfred Bent died intestate, leaving three minor children-Charles, Juliano and Alberte Silas Bent. Soon afterward a compromise was effected between the Bent heirs and the other parties to the action, by which Maxwell agreed to pay to the Bent heirs the sum of eighteen thousand dollars, and the original decree was set aside.
In May, 1866, Aloys Scheurich and his wife and Alexander Hicklin and his wife conveyed their holdings (an undivided two-twelfths) to Max- well, and Guadalupe Bent, widow of Alfred Bent, did the same. In a suit brought in 1884 it was alleged that Guadalupe Bent could not read, write or speak English and was ignorant of the business of law courts, of boundaries of land, or confirmation of said grant by Congress; also charged numerous false representations on the part of Maxwell to secure her consent to the sale: also charged she never received any portion of the money (six thousand dollars), nor did any of her heirs.
In July, 1870, Maxwell had sold to the Maxwell Land Grant & Rail- way Company most of the lands in the original grant. By 1875 the Max- well Land Grant Company was bankrupt. All its personal property had
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been sold by the sheriff to satisfy judgment creditors, and all of the com- pany's land in New Mexico was sold for unpaid taxes. At this time Stephen B. Elkins was president of the company, W. R. Morley was vice- president, Harry Whigham was secretary, and the directors included Thomas B. Catron, Dr. R. H. Longwill and H. M. Porter. No meeting of the directors of the company was held after 1875, as provided by law, and in 1878 the property went into the hands of W. T. Thornton as receiver. Mr. Thornton retained possession of the property until 1880, when the property was sold under foreclosure in behalf of the first mortgage bond- holders.
Stephen B. Elkins, more than any other individual, was responsible for the successful consummation of the schemes of the land company to defraud the American government and the people of New Mexico. Elkins, having graduated from the University of Missouri in 1860 and been admitted to the bar in 1863, came to New Mexico, and, by interesting him- self in politics, was appointed to the federal office of district attorney. The Mexican system of peonage, slavery for debt, was in full operation then, and Elkins laid the foundations of his fortune by wholesale prosecu- tions, each of which netted him a good sum of money, whether there was conviction or compromise. With the capital thus gained lawfully, the young lawyer and politician went into the business of grabbing public land-keeping firm grip on his political power, and getting successively the invaluable offices of attorney general of the Territory and territorial representative in Congress. As a citizen of New Mexico, a "captain of industry" and a "developer of resources" he was compactly described by the distinguished George W. Julian, one time surveyor general of New Mexico and a careful, honest man, in a speech at Indianapolis, on Sep- tember 14, 1892. Said Julian :
"Elkins' dealings were mainly in Spanish grants, which he bought for a very small price. Elkins became a member of the land ring of the Terri- tory, and largely through his influence the survey of these grants was made to contain hundreds of thousands of acres that did not belong to them. He this became a great land holder, for through the manipulation of committees in Congress grants thus illegally surveyed were confirmed with their fictitious boundaries.
"He made himself particularly conspicuous as the hero of the famous Maxwell grant, which, as Secretary Cox decided in 1869, contained only about ninety-six thousand acres, but which, under the manipulation of Elkins, was surveyed and patented for 1,714.764 acres, or nearly 2,680 square miles. Congress, through the action of its committees, was beguiled into the confirmation of the grant, and thus the Supreme Court was com- pelled to recognize this astounding robbery as valid. By such methods as these more than 10,000.000 acres of the public domain in New Mexico became the spoil of the land grabbers; and the ringleader in this game of spoliation was Stephen B. Elkins, the confederate of Stephen W. Dorsey, and the master spirit of the movement. I do not speak at random, but from official documents and ascertained facts with which I became familiar during my public service of four years in that Territory."
In the fall of 1883 testimony in suit in equity of the United States government against the Maxwell Land Grant Company, the Denver & Rio Grande Railway Company, the Pueblo & Arkansas Valley Railroad Com-
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pany and the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé Railroad Company was taken at Trinidad, Colorado, before E. J. Hubbard. J. A. Bentley and E. B. Wiegand appeared for the government and Frank Springer for the de- fendants.
A vast amount of evidence was introduced in behalf of the government to show that the original grant to Beaubien and Miranda contemplated in- vesting in them title to a relatively small tract of land, situated on the rincon of the Red river. It was shown that in 1860 L. B. Maxwell, then owner of the grant, had said to a prospective settler in the neighborhood that he claimed as belonging to his grant all the lands drained by waters flowing into the Vermejo or the Red river, and the lands drained by waters flowing into the Purgatoire belonged to the St. Vrain grant.
As has been seen, serious trouble between the proprietors of the Max- well land grant and squatters upon portions of the tract of land claimed by the company began with the discovery of gold in the neighborhood of Mount Baldy soon after the close of the Civil war. These misunderstand- ings reached an acute stage in 1887 and 1888, when the company, in order to effect an amicable adjustment of the difficulties, announced that it was prepared to buy the rights of all settlers, the improvements they had made to the property on which they had located, and their live stock. Those who would not return to the company a quit claim deed in return for the moneys at which the company appraised the various disputed properties were sued.
In the winter of 1887-8 officers and representatives of the company visited Stonewall, Colorado, to serve papers in a suit against one or more of these squatters, when a fight occurred between the officers and some of the "anti-granters" there, the latter attempting to force the company's agents to leave the neighborhood. In the melee that followed a man named Russell was killed and several were injured. A couple of years before this event the company had instituted ejectment proceedings against O. P. McMains. McMains was one of the leaders in the fight against the grant authorities, and when an attempt was made to serve execution papers upon his stock, his friends rallied about him and defied the constituted authorities. For a time their tactics were successful. At this time one Cook, a deputy sheriff, and a man named Russell were in the employ of the grant as special officers. Soon after the failure to attach McMains' stock. Cook was waylaid and shot, though not fatally. He then swore ont a warrant in blank in the hopes of securing his assailant, and attempted to arrest an old Indian living on Poñil creek, whom he suspected. The In- dian resisted arrest and Cook killed him. A short time afterward, while Cook and Russell were traveling down Vermejo creek, they were inter- cepted by a number of Mexicans, who killed Russell and wounded Cook's horse.
The anti-grant element, consisting of practically all the settlers upon the tract claimed by the company, fully believing that efforts were being made by the company to deprive them of their rights without a show of justice, about this period effected an organization whose aim was to protect the titles of all concerned. The best men living upon the land claimed by the company, whose homes in some cases were remote from the tract in- cluded within the original boundaries of the grant as it had been defined by Maxwell himself, were parties to this historic contest, and led the fight
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against what they firmly believed to be an attempt to rob them. These troubles continued, with an occasional killing on one side or the other, until after the adjustment of the long-mooted question by the United States Land Court in the early nineties.
The Maxwell Land Grant Company brought an ejectment suit in 1892 against John B. Dawson to recover possession of a tract of about twenty- five thousand acres located within the limits of the Beaubien and Miranda (or Maxwell) grant, the grant at the time being one million seven hundred and fourteen thousand acres. Fifteen thousand acres had been conveyed by Maxwell prior to May 26, 1869 (really January 7, 1869), when he sold his grant, and Dawson occupied this, which the Maxwell Land Grant Company did not dispute, and some additional land (coal land), which they claimed. The Supreme Court sustained Dawson in his possession.
After Maxwell sold to Abreu the property occupied for many years by the latter, a tract bounded on the north by the center of the mesa of the Urracca and the divide to Canyon Bonita, Maxwell sold to Peter Joseph, father of Antonio Joseph, of Ojo Caliente, all of the land north of the Abreu tract from the Chicora to the Cimarroncita, west of the road from Rayado to Cimarron. ; The boundaries were well defined at the time. The heirs of Joseph afterward sold their property to Francis Clutton, a son-in- law of M. P. Pells, then general manager of the Maxwell Land Grant Company. When Clutton surveyed the land, he recognized the boundaries. Clutton soon afterward sold his interest to McCormick, who has brought suit to quiet title to a large portion of the grant south of the present north boundary of the Abreu tract. comprising several thousand acres, which formed a part of the original Abreu purchase, and still occupied by the Abreu family. This tract has been occupied by Mrs. Petra B. Abreu since 1857. Aside from this occupation, Judge Beaubien, Mrs. Abreu's father, one of the original grantees, made a will, and the heirs sold their respective interests inherited from their father to L. B. Maxwell. But Beaubien's wife never sold her interest, nor signed the papers transferring her hus- band's interest in the land, and consequently it is now maintained that the living heirs of Judge Beaubien have legal rights in the property as heirs of his wife.
The Territory was greatly wrought up in 1883, 1884 and 1885 over the extensive fraudulent operations in land in New Mexico. The matter was investigated under direction of Congress. and the report of the special agents who performed the work showed that the register of the land office had entered into collusion with a ring of capitalists to get possession of vast areas of public land in the Territory by fraudulent means. The report recommended the dismissal of the register of the land office and his punishment by the courts. It gives an interesting history of how some of the large cattle raisers were able to obtain large ranches upon the payment of merely nominal sums. Nineteen fraudulent homestead entries were found in Colfax county alone, and patents for fourteen of them had been procured by the register for one Pedro Sanchez. All the entries were made to fictitious names or names of people who knew nothing about them. It was also officially declared that the register worked in collusion with the surveyor general, Atkinson. The American Valley Cattle Company, a large corporation, was one of the combinations which was prominent in securing large tracts of land through fraudulent entries and conveyances.
Charles H. Trotier-Beaubien, Deceased
Original owner of the Maxwell Land Grant. From an oil painting in the possession of his daughter, Mrs. Petra B. Abreu, of Rayado. N. M.
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The history of this corporation's occupation of the public lands is a long story of the most diaphanous fraud. One glaring instance of their reckless plundering was shown by their entering a homestead in the name of "Hank" Andrews, an Indian desperado, who had been hanged by a mob some time before. A great tract of coal land was also appropriated by a ring of speculators. Evidence was given that one thousand dollars was paid to one of the minor land officials for a favorable decision on the application. The accused officials were permitted to resign, and through the influences that prevailed in the United States Senate no steps were taken to cancel patents issued.
Charles Hipolyte Trotier-Beaubien, by reason of his ownership of what might be regarded as an empire in itself, became a most conspicuous figure in pioneer history of the west. He was born in Canada, probably at Three Rivers, and was descended from a long line of noble ancestors. The family became well represented in America, and several of its members have become prominent in affairs in this country and in Canada. The first representative of the name in Canada was Jules Trotier, who was born in 1590 at St. Malod 'lye au Perche, France, and there married Catherine Loyseau. His son, Antoine, Sieur des Ruisseaux, married Catherine Lefebone, by whom he had a son, Michael, Sieur de Beaubien-the first of the family to be called Beaubien, Seigneur de la Riviere du Loup. The latter married Agnes Godfroy de Linctot, and after her death he married Therese Mouet de Moras. Louis Trotier. Sieur de Beaubien, son of the second marriage, married Marie Louise Robida Manseaux. They had a son, Paul Trotier, Sieur de Beaubien, who on October 3, 1795, married Louise Charlotte Adelaide Durocher, daughter of J. B. Durocher and Marguerite Boucher-Denoix.
Charles Hipolvte Trotier, Sieur de Beaubien, was the first child of this marriage. Upon leaving Canada for the United States he used the name of Beaubien, by which he was thereafter known. Arriving in New Mexico in 1823, in company with a number of other French Canadians who desired to investigate the resources of the wonderful northern province of Mexico, he went directly to Taos, where, in 1827, he married Paula Lobato, daughter of one of the prominent Spanish citizens of that historic town. To them were born the following children: Narciso, who was killed during the uprising of 1847, commonly known as the Taos revolution ; Luz, who became the wife of Lucien B. Maxwell; Leonar, who married V. Trujillo; Juanita, who married L. D. J. Clouthier; Teodora, who married Frederick Müller ; Petrita, who married Jesus G. Abreu, and Pablo, who married Rebecca Abreu.
About 1846 Mr. Beaubien traveled from Taos down to the Cimarroncita, where he found Lucien B. Maxwell located just north of the present site of the Abreu ranch. A company of United States regulars were also occupying the military post which had been established there by the govern- ment. The house on the ranch had been erected a short time before by Lieutenant Wilson of the army. About the same time Kit Carson erected a home about three hundred yards from the ranch house in a southerly direction. the ruins of which are still standing.
Guadalupe Miranda. a citizen of Mexico, had asked the Mexican gov- ernment for a grant of land in that section of the province, and this grant was conferred upon Beaubien and Miranda, who had previously agreed to
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the partnership. Soon afterward Beaubien purchased Miranda's interest and became sole owner of this great grant, the history of which will be found elsewhere in this volume. The final payment to Miranda was not made by Beaubien until 1857, when Pablo Miranda, son of Guadalupe Miranda, visited Taos to receive the money due. Miranda never resided upon any portion of the grant, but retained his residence near Juarez, Mexico. His descendants still reside there. After the death of Beaubien, February 10, 1864, his heirs sold the grant to Lucien B. Maxwell, who in the same year sold a portion of it to Jesus Gil Abreu.
During all these transactions Beaubien continued to reside in Taos, where his death occurred and where he was buried. He took an active interest in all public affairs. He was one of the first district judges in New Mexico, having been appointed by General Kearny to the bench in the third district, consisting of the counties of Rio Arriba and Taos. To the native inhabitants he was known as "Don Carlos" Beaubien. Kit Carson, who was known to the natives as "Don Cristobal" Carson, Colonel Ceran St. Vrain, Governor Charles Bent, Richens Wootten and Lucien B. Max- well were his contemporaries, and their influence among the native inhab- itants was paramount, excepting during the troublous times commonly re- ferred to as the Taos revolution.
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