Previously I lived on lot No. 116 in a tent, doing my own cooking. I built myself a nice adobe house, doing much of the work myself. Mexican peons made the bricks from a mixture of adobe soil and straw. They were two feet by one foot, four inches thick, and dried in the sun. These were very substantial, withstood the rain and made a house cool in the daytime and warm at night. The house was on the bank of a ditch supplying running water to the farm and under many cottonwood trees. In summer I often slept on the adobe earth roof. Strange to say, even in the hardest rains the water would seldom go through the roof, which was about eight inches thick.
At the same time I built my house, I superintended building houses for many others.
PLAT
OF THE
TOWN OF ELPASO.
DIMENSIONS
BLOCKS 160 FEET SQUARE.
LOTS 86 FEET 8 INCHES BY 120 FEET.
STREETS 70 FEET WIDE.
ALLEYS 20.
PROPRIETORS.
J.S. GILLETT, H.S. GILLETT,
J.F. CROSBY, W.J. MORTON,
V. ST. VRAIN, W.T. SMITH,
ANSON MILLS,
FEB. 28, 1859. SURVEYOR.
EXPLANATION
SCALE 200 FEET TO THE INCH
PROPERTY SOLD AND IMPROVED BEFORE THE TOWN WAS LAID OFF INDICATED BY BROKEN LINES
J. McKITTRICK & CO. LITH. 36 M. MAIN ST.
I early learned the ways of the roaming Indians, and in my surveying expeditions took only a burro for my pack and two Mexicans for chain carriers. I wore a buckskin suit made by myself, and carried a single change of underclothing. We moved from tract to tract, camping without a tent under the mesquite trees, our provisions consisting only of coffee, hard bread and bacon, and occasionally some fresh meat we could kill. Although Indians undoubtedly saw us, they never attacked us during the three years in which I did surveying. The risk of being killed to secure only one animal and a small amount of provisions was not worth while.
My principal employer was Mr. Samuel A. Maverick, of San Antonio, formerly from South Carolina. A run-away boy, he had joined an expedition of about twenty men, which invaded Mexico at the town of Mier prior to the Mexican war. The party was captured. The Mexicans put ten white beans in a bag with ten black ones, ordering them to draw a bean each. Those who got the black beans were immediately shot. Maverick began locating land soon after the war and became the largest land-holder in Texas, if not in the United States.
He owned more cattle on the free public range than any other man in Texas. In 1861 nearly all the people went into the war. Maverick's cattle ran wild on the range, and, when the war closed there were tens of thousands of cattle bred during the four years. Maverick was the greatest claimant to these wild cattle, and marked them with his brand wherever caught. Other owners, and even men who had never owned cattle, would brand with their own marks such cattle as they caught unbranded. It thus became the custom among cattle owners using the free range to stamp as their own any unbranded cattle they found during the "round up," and to this day these stray cattle are known as "Mavericks."
Maverick accompanied me on every surveying expedition I made, following my tracings and examining my notes. He expressed the greatest patriotism as a Unionist, was bitterly opposed to the then proposed secession, as were most Texans, including Governor Houston.