Program on ‘Old 300’ Land Grants Set Aug. 29

Did you know that the very first land grant surveyed in Stephen F. Austin’s Colony was the Sylvanus Castleman half league (2,214 acres) just a few miles from La Grange? In August 1823, even before the town of San Felipe was surveyed, Seth Ingram was sent to survey land that Castleman already lived on, keep good field notes, and return to prove to Austin and the Baron de Bastrop that he knew how to survey land, particularly along meandering river banks.

The Fayette Heritage Museum and Archives invites you to an evening with historian and surveyor Henry Mayo for his program, “The Old 300 at 200: The Bicentennial of the Austin Colony Land Grants.”

Henry Mayo grew up in College Station working for his father’s surveying and engineering company, which he leads today as a branch of Baseline Corporation. He is an active member of many organizations, mostly history related, and is known for his living history surveying presentations, as well as a Tank Commander in WWII battle reenactments. Among a variety of positions, Mayo has served as Chair of the Brazos County Historical Commission, President of the Washington on the Brazos Historical Foundation, History Committee Chairman of the Texas Society of Professional Surveyors, Past-President and current Secretary of the Brazos Valley Museum of Natural History, President of SPJST Lodge 189, Adjutant of Sul Ross Camp of the Sons of Confederate Veterans and Past-President of the El Camino Real de los Tejas National Historic Trail Association.

Nationally, Mayo is the Secretary of the Descendants of Mexican War Veterans, and an active member of the Surveyors Historical Society. Additionally, he handcrafts old-style survey chains for living historians, museums and even the Texas General Land Office.

According to Mayo, in early July 1824 Commissioner of Colonization Baron de Bastrop arrived at San Felipe de Austin and began issuing land titles to Empresario Stephen F. Austin’s first colonists. In July through mid-August of

1824, Bastrop issued titles to approximately 270 Mexican land grants, totaling over 1.5 million acres of land. These first families of Austin’s colony became known as the “Old 300” since Austin had been authorized to bring 300 families to Texas, under his colonization contract with the Mexican government. The remaining “Old 300” grants authorized under the first contract were issued at San Felipe in May and June of 1827, while grants under the second contract were also being issued.

The majority of these original land grants are located along rivers and large creeks, especially the Brazos River which ran through the middle of Austin’s colony, bounded on the south by the Gulf of Mexico and the north by the Old San Antonio Road (El Camino Real). Some, like the Sylvanus Castleman half league and the Rabb Mill 3-league tract, were located along the Colorado River. Do you know whether you live on one of the Old 300 grants?

The program will be held at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday,Aug. 29 in the meeting room at the rear of the Fayette Public Library at 855 S. Jefferson Street in La Grange. The entrance is along Franklin Street.