Nacogdoches July 7th 1828
D. Sir
I crossed the Sabine on the first day of June and the season being
so far advanced the roads so bad, and corn so scarce and high, that
I was compelld to decline proceeding into the province further than
this place with my family, untill I take a ride through and view
the different parts of the Country and make my selection for a
permanent Settlement.
I have just received your message by Majr M. A. Heard and
intend to visit you as soon as I possibly can, after making the
necessary provisions for the comfort of my family during this
season as they will have to remain in this place until I explore,
select a situation and provide the necessary buildings for their
comfort—my wish and intention is to try to procure a good healthy
situation as near the Gulf as I can find such an one and as near the
scite as possible that will most probably be the principal seaport of
the Country, and I shall wish your advice and assistance in making
such selections so far as you can give them to me without too much
trouble and inconvenience to yourself. I believe that you have a
better general knowledge of the Country than any other man in it,
and that you will give me the most correct information in your
power relative to the Country generally, and particularly that part
binding on the Gulf. I have a considerable interest in the
Nashville Companys Grant and it would probably be more to my interest
to settle in that Grant than any other part of the province—as I
could induce a great many families to emigrate to the section of
country that I select for my residence, but I begin to think the Grant
will never be colonised by the present Company, unless some three
or four of us will take all the trouble upon us pay all the expense
and undergo all the privations dangers and difficulties of colonising
the Grant and then give the balance of the company their full share
of the lands without any charge. I was in Nashville in March last
and prevailed on the Directors named in the late Grant to have a
meeting and try to make the necessary arrangements for colonising
the Grant and forward instructions forthwith to Majr League on
that subject, call in their Old scrip and make new scrip agreeably
to the form you gave them, they promised me that they would do
so and calld a meeting which was attended by a bare majority and
they only talked of what they would do and concluded to call
another meeting in a short time when they expected to have a full
Board and then would do every thing necessary and immediately
thereafter commence operations in every way necessary for
colonising and promised to inform me what they did before I left
Kentucky, where I remained untill the 3d. of May and heard nothing
more from them Most of the Directors hold very small interests in
the Grant viz. 1/8 of a share and they care very little about it as
scarcely one of them ever intend emigrating to the Country. I
should probably have settled in that Grant if the Company had
done what they ought, to colonise it, but as they have not I have
determined to locate myself where my Judgment induces me to believe
is the best place for my own prívate interest after seeing you and
getting the best information I can.
It will be some weeks before I can leave here to look at the
country, and I shall be glad to receive a letter from you as soon
as convenient informing me whether you will be absent from home
any time this season and if so at what time as I do not wish to
go there in your absence, and any other information that you may
deem important will be thankfully received.
Amos Edwards
[Addressed:] Col: Stephen F. Austin San, Fellippi de, Austin