Forty Years at El Paso, 1858-1898

by W. W. Mills

The United States Attorney and Marshal for New Mexico came to El Paso and libeled the property of certain leading Confederates and proceeded against it in the United States Court at Mesilla, New Mexico, and certain of these lands and lots were declared forfeited and were sold at El Paso by the United States Marshal, and I purchased a portion of this property, as did others. I paid the Marshal eighteen hundred dollars good and lawful money therefor, and received and recorded his deeds.

I protected the property of some of my Confederate neighbors, Dowell’s and Stephenson’s and others.

Along with what I purchased was a six-eighths’ interest in the El Paso town tract belonging to the Gillett brothers, who were then absent with the Confederate army; but some years later, when they returned to El Paso and we patched up a peace, I proposed to them that if they would join their title with mine I would pay their debts, amounting to a few thousand dollars, which debts were a lien on the property, and we would hold it share and share alike.

This they declined to do, and in the end they lost it all. So did I, for years later the Supreme Court of the United States decided, not that the property was not subject to forfeiture, as all such property certainly was, but simply that the Act of Congress referred to did not confer the jurisdiction claimed by the Court at Mesilla.

Without a murmur I reconveyed all the property to the original owners and lost the eighteen hundred I had paid the Marshal.

Then the Gillett’s creditors sold them out. I had held possession of the town tract and paid taxes on it for five years.

It has been said that I purchased the property of Simon Hart at the confiscation sale. That is not true. I purchased that property at Sheriff’s sale on a judgment for false imprisonment, which I obtained against Hart in a Texas court, which judgment was twice affirmed by the Supreme Court of Texas.

In 1871 I was the owner of a portion of Franklin Heights, of the city of El Paso, then known as Hart Survey, No. 9.

Being in Washington City I met my friend, Gen. Robert B. Mitchell, and gave him a power of attorney to sell the property. He sold to different purchasers, to the amount of $14,000, and we divided the proceeds share and share alike.

The property was then considered valueless by those who knew less than we did, but it is now worth forty-fold what we received for it. Among the purchasers were George W. Gray of Washington City and one Peck of Kansas, and others.