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Description

Interesting manuscript map of Texas, depicting its early Republic Period, or perhaps a bit earliest.

Fascinating early manuscript map of Texas, showing several very early features. Cartographically, there are several clues upon which to date the cartographic detail of the map. Most notable are the depiction of the Texas border at the 110th Parallel and the inclusion of only Austin's Grant, apparently suggesting that there had been no other Empressario Grants given out by Mexico at the time the map was made.

Another fascinating clue as to the date of the map is the place name "Grayson" in southern Texas. This is unquestionably a reference to Peter Waegner Grayson's plantation near Matagorda Bay, which he settled in 1832 (see additional details on Grayson below). Grayson was bornin in Kentucky in 1788 and movd to Austin's colony in 1830, where he practiceded law. He served as Attorney General for the Republic of Texas under David Burnet and Sam Houston. Grayson was perhaps best known for having travelled to Mexico City in 1834 with Spencer Jack to secure Stephen F. Austin's release from jail.

There are a few other clues as to the date the map was drawn (or at least the model used for the map). Most notable are the location of the "Mustang Desert," and the spelling of the Brazos River (Brasos),. Both of these usages were relatively common in the 1830s and 1840s .

The map appears to have been drawn by a relatively naive hand and was perhaps drawn as a part of a student geography project. There is the beginning of a second map on the back of the sheet covering the area to the north of this region. While maps drawn for school projects appear periodically on the market, this is the first such map of the Republic of Texas which we have seen on the market.

The following entry appears for Peter Grayson in the Handbook of Texas on Line:

Peter Wagener Grayson, attorney, poet, diplomat, cabinet officer, and presidential contender, son of Benjamin and Caroline (Taylor) Grayson, was born in Bardstown, Virginia (later Kentucky), in 1788. His family had been prominent in Virginia; his great-uncle William was president of the Continental Congress and a United States senator; he was also related to President James Monroe. Grayson became an attorney, a well-known poet, and also a soldier during the War of 1812. In 1825 he moved to Louisville, from where in 1828 he was elected as a Jacksonian to the state legislature.

During the 1820s Grayson suffered serious mental illness. Temporary recovery came by 1830, when he received a league of land in Stephen F. Austin's Texas colony. By 1832 he had settled and developed a large plantation near Matagorda and had also become a confidant of Austin. In time he had substantial landholdings and owned many slaves. When Austin was imprisoned in Mexico City, Grayson and Spencer H. Jack journeyed there in late 1834 to procure his release. When in late 1835 Austin called for volunteers to repel the Mexican army, Grayson responded. On October 7 the soldiers elected him president of a board of war at Gonzales, which served until Austin's arrival. Then Grayson became Austin's aide-de-camp. During his service he was elected to the Consultation (1835) but did not leave the army to attend.

During the early stages of the Texas Revolution Grayson helped raise volunteers in the United States. On May 4, 1836, president ad interim David Burnet named him attorney general; he signed the Treaties of Velasco on May 14. Two weeks later he and James Collinsworth were named commissioners to the United States to seek recognition and annexation. They arrived in Washington on July 8 but could do little before Burnet's term ended in October. Texas president Sam Houston named Grayson attorney general in February 1837; he served until leaving for Washington in August as special envoy for annexation. In December 1837 the president made him naval agent to the United States.

Grayson reluctantly agreed to be the Houston party candidate for president in 1838. His candidacy was passive, since after initially declining he agreed to be minister plenipotentiary to the United States. On June 20 he left Galveston for Washington. July 8 found him in Bean's Station, northeast of Knoxville. That evening, he wrote of the terrible mental "fiend that possessed me" and bemoaned his acceptance of the presidential nomination, which had led to falsified, bitter campaign charges against him. The next morning he fatally shot himself. Besides a history of mental illness and the terrible calumnies of the campaign, his suicide has been blamed on an alleged rebuff to his marriage proposal by a Louisville woman whom he had long courted. In 1846 Grayson County was named in his honor.

Condition Description
Minor Foxing, with a larger stain at the top.