A REPUBLIC OF TEXAS MANUSCRIPT, DEED REQUEST FOR LAND TITLE VALIDATION, ASHBEL SMITH AND CHARLES C. GIVENS OF HARRIS COUNTY TO CHIEF JUSTICE OF WASHIN

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Feb 6, 2021

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• Lot Description
  A REPUBLIC OF TEXAS MANUSCRIPT, DEED REQUEST FOR LAND TITLE VALIDATION, ASHBEL SMITH AND CHARLES C. GIVENS OF HARRIS COUNTY TO CHIEF JUSTICE OF WASHINGTON COUNTY, 1837-1844, hand inscribed ink on cream laid paper with a heraldic blind stamp. 7 3/4" x 6 1/4" Note: "To the Hon. The Chief Justice of Washington County, The Petition of Ashbel Smith of Harris County sets forth that he purchased and paid for, several years ago, a tract of land situated on San Jacinto Bay, belonging then and the property of Charles C. Givens. Said C.C. Givens then executed a bond for title to the petitioner with two good and sufficient witnesses and also delivered possession of the land to the petitioner. The bond for title was duly recorded in Harris Co. records shortly after its execution, and the petitioner has ever since held undisputed possession of the land in question. As the C.C. Givens died a few years since before making a title in regular form to the petitioner. Your petitioner therefore prays your honorable court to order and require Givens' administrator of C. C. Givens deed to make title to said tract of land, conformally with law and the written contract between C.C. Givens and petitioner. And your petitioner writes and pray, Ashbel Smith of Harris Co."Ashbel Smith (1805-1886) is recorded in the Texas State Historical Association Handbook of Texas writing, "Smith had a long and distinguished medical career. When he arrived in Texas in the spring of 1837, he became Sam Houston's roommate and close friend. Houston appointed him surgeon general of the Army of the Republic of Texas on June 7, 1837. In this role, Smith set up an efficient system of operation and established the first hospital in Houston, a military institution. He also served as the first chairman of the Board of Medical Censors, which was established by the Second Congress of the Republic in December 1837. During the devastating epidemic of yellow fever in Galveston in 1839, he treated the sick, published factual reports of the progress of the disease in the Galveston News, and after the epidemic abated, wrote the first treatise on yellow fever in Texas...In 1842 Ashbel Smith traveled to Europe as the charge d'affaires of Texas to England and France, a position he held from 1842-1844. In 1848 Smith met with ten other Galveston doctors to begin working for the formation of the Medical and Surgical Society of Galveston. When the Texas Medical Association came into being in 1853, he was chairman of the committee that drafted its constitution and bylaws...After Texas became a state Smith served three terms (1855, 1866, and 1879) in the state legislature as a representative from Harris County. As a legislator, he supported measures to aid railroad construction, validate land titles, improve common schools, found the University of Texas, and pay off the public debt...He spent his last years in an unceasing effort to establish a state university with a first-class medical branch. As president of the University of Texas Board of Regents, established in 1881, he led the effort to recruit the best professors available for the university faculty and to set up a curriculum necessary for a first-rate institution of higher learning." Noting the particularly European style blind stamp, the present letter is attributed to Ashbel Smith's time spent performing ambassadorial and diplomatic duties. Unfortunately undated, the surviving examples of Ashbel's handwriting and age of the paper are consistent with his other known early Texas documents. The work he is conducting here anticipates his legal ownership of lands he had apparently purchased by a word of mouth "handshake" deal between himself and early Texas Pioneer Charles C. Givens. Ashbel Smith writes to the "Chief Justice of Washington County," possibly John P. Coles (1793-1847), where the records for the Republic of Texas were held until Texas was annexed to the United States, and at that time the records were moved to Austin. The location of the records department helps date the work.Charles C. Givens, Esq., is not recorded with any birth or death dates, though his passing is mentioned within the present, undated letter. He appears to have arrived in Texas as a bachelor, which appears to have persisted throughout his lifetime, potentially causing this very land dispute. In one of a few documents that retain his name, C.C. Givens is directed, at the request of Stephen F. Austin, in a correspondence dated October 14, 1836, to supply two oxen in order to ensure supplies. The entry is found in The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, edited by George P. Garrison, Number 4, The Journal of the Permanent Council (October 11-27, 1835), page 258. Otherwise unmentioned within the early Texas record, Charles C. Givens' name is found published in an archive held at the Houston Public Library containing information on the first settlers of Harris County (1822-1845), "In 1824, Stephen F. Austin accompanied by his secretary Sam M. Williams and the commissioner, Baron de Bastrop, came by appointment to the house of William Scott (1784-1837)…'There was no provision in the law for granting land to men without families. These were joined in groups of two or three and each group constituted a legal family." Just below Adele B. Looscan pens that, "Those in Harris County who received titles at this time (1824) and located their land in this county were: [listing the names of early Harris County settlers followed by.]…There seem to have been only about thirty original grants made in Harris County at this time, but there were several settlers in the county who located their lands in other counties embraced within Austin's first colonial grant and the lands of a few located in two counties, which adjoined each other. Besides the settlers who received land titles, there were others, members of the same families who should be mentioned...Charles C. Givens and Presley Grill, who immigrated with William Scott, and Dr. Knuckles..." Reference: "Harris County, 1822-1845, Adele B. Looscan, in The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Oct. 1914, Vol. 18, No. 2, pp. 195-198. Provenance: Estate of Dr. Paul E. Shutts, Houston, Texas.

  Condition

  Some expected toning, creases as issued, red staining near edges, probably trimmed, undated, blind stamp somewhat illegible, but overall in good to very good condition, wear commensurate with age. Simpson Galleries strongly encourages in-person inspection of items by the bidder. Statements by Simpson Galleries regarding the condition of objects are for guidance only and should not be relied upon as statements of fact and do not constitute a representation, warranty, or assumption of liability by Simpson Galleries. All lots offered are sold "AS IS." NO REFUNDS will be issued based on condition.
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