Essex town Essex County State of
New York. Feb. 15th 1830
To Colo S. F. Austin
Sir
A writer in the Ohio Monitor, under date of Oct 14 1829, after
giving a short history and discription of your settlement at San
Felippe de Austin in Texas, proceeds to say that " Lands can be
obtained by emigrants with great facility from the Empresario
and the Commissioner of government under the Colonization Law
which authorizes the grant to families of actual settlers of one
league Mexican Measure, equal in English to 4446 acres superficial
surface and unmarried men can obtain the 4th part of that quantity.
The expenses of which will not amount to four cents per acre."
The object of this communication is to inquire whether the
statements in that article can be relied on. There are from eight to
twelve families in this place respectable for intelligence sobriety and
industry, who if they could be assured of realizing the prospects
held out to them by the writer of the article alluded to, would like
to set out for that place as soon as they could make proper
arrangements; but we feel it to be too serious an undertaking to engage
in without a better guarantee than an anonymous writer in a
newspaper.
We should be particularly gratified to receive from you a speedy
answer to the enquiry whether such a company could be located
together in a favorable spot, and on what conditions with as many
particulars relative to the soil, climate, civil and religious
regulations etc as you can afford time to devote to such an object. If
settlers from the north is an object worthy of your attention, we
flatter ourselves that we should be able to draw after us if
everything should prove favorable, a great number of families in a few
years, in as much as we can avail ourselves of internal navigation
from this place (the shores of Lake Champlain) to N. Orleans a
distance of three thousand miles. Our first company would consist
of one or two physicians, some mechanics and some agriculturalists.
Abiel P. Mead M. D.