CITY OF GALVESTON,
ON
GALVESTON ISLAND,
IN TEXAS:
WITH A
HISTORY OF THE TITLE OF THE PROPRIETOR.
AND A
BRIEF ACCOUNT OF ALL ITS ADVANTAGES,
ACCOMPANIED WITH A
PLAN OF THE CITY AND HARBOR,
AND
A MAP OF TEXAS,

SHOWING THE COMMERCIAL CHANNELS WITH THE INTERIOR THROUGH WHICH THE CITY IS TO DERIVE ITS EXTENSIVE TRADE.

NEW ORLEANS—PRINTED BY HOTCHKISS & CO.
1837.

CITY OF GALVESTON.

THIS splendid town site, lies on the Bay of Galveston,
in the Republic of Texas; and possesses superior advan-
tages as a sea-port, over any other point to be found on
the whole coast of the country. When it is considered
that Galveston harbor affords twenty and thirty feet of wa-
ter near the landing of the City, and seventeen feet on the
outer bar,—while there is no other harbor east or west of
it, that gives more than seven or eight feet of water,—it
is manifest, that this City must become the largest in the
whole republic, and, ere long, only second to New Orleans
on the whole margin of the Gulf of Mexico.

As doubts may arise, with some who are not fully in-
formed on the subject, respecting titles, and especially as
disputes are so common in relation to general titles to lands
in Texas, it may be proper briefly to state the solid basis
upon which those to Galveston have been arranged by the
present proprietors, Col. Maynard and others, and upon
which they at present rest. The origin of the title for
one league and one labor of land, on the east end of Gal-
veston Island, upon which the City of Galveston has been
beautifully laid off, was granted to Juan N. Seguin, as a
Mexican citizen, by the States of Coahuila and Texas, in
1832, with the previous approbation of the General Gov-
ernment of Mexico, which had made a decree in 1832, au-
thorizing each state to grant a league and a labor of land,
to all those who had suffered depredations in the revolu-
tionary wars of Mexico. To accomplish which, it was
necessary the petitioner for land should have the recom-

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This City commands the whole trade of the Trinity and San Jacinto rivers, and of Buffalo Bayou. And by means of a short rail-road, fifteen miles long, from Houston to the Fort Bend on the Brasos river, and by a canal three and a half miles long, from Velasco at the mouth of the Brasos, to West Bay, which communicates with the harbor of Galveston,—the passage being sufficiently deep for any sort of steam-boat navigation,—the whole trade of the heart of Texas, of all the rich soil watered by the Brasos, and its thickly populated tributaries, will necessarily flow into the City of Galveston for exportation. This is the great outlet for the cotton trade of Texas. Nothing but small craft can enter the mouth of the Brasos, or any other port of Texas, while ships of 600 tons or more can load at Galveston with cotton for Liverpool or Havre. Nature has marked this spot out for a great commercial city. A rail-road is contemplated to be made from Houston to Washington on the Brasos, fifty miles in length, which will still more completely command for Galveston the entire trade of the Brasos. And another important rail-road is contemplated to be made, leading from the three forks on the Trinity river, to Fort Towson, or Pecon Point, on Red River, 120 miles in length.

The Brasos is not a very good water course for steam-boat navigation, except from the mouth to Fort Bend; and above the latter place, only keel-boats can succeed well, owing to the irregularity in stages of water to be found in the river. At times it suddenly rises, in consequence of heavy rains, to great height, and then again, in dry weather, as suddenly falls to low water mark, becoming impassable, except to keel-boats. A great, and indeed an insuperable difficulty to the growth of any town at its mouth, is its shallow bar, which has proved so destructive to vessels in attempting to cross it, that seven and eight per cent. insur-

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rance is asked for vessels bound thither; while only one and a fourth, to two per cent. is asked on vessels and car goes bound to Galveston. The natural, and indeed the inevitable outlet of the trade of the Brasos, is through the City of Galveston, by way of Houston, or of the Buffalo Bayou, and through West Bay to the City.

The City of Galveston will also, without doubt, com- mand the trade of the Sabine and the Neuceos rivers, by a canal one and a half miles long, joining East Galveston bay with Sabine Lake, through Taylor's and East Bay Bayous, which are both broad and deep. The outlet of Sabine Lake into the Gulf, can never be of the least importance, as no more than four or five feet of water can possibly be obtained at any time on the bar.

It is an established truth, that on the whole continent of North America, there is no spot or district of land found to surpass the fertility of the rich soil, watered by the Brasos river in Texas. Much of it on cultivation, it is said, will produce from fifteen to eighteen hundred pounds of fine seed cotton to the acre. With a mild and salubrious climate, interspersed as the country is, with the most picturesque groves of trees, and green prairies—affording sustenance to the finest stock,—and withal finely watered, no country on the habitable globe holds out equal advantages to the industrious farmer, as Texas. All the Brasos country, embracing all the rich central portions of Texas, and all the eastern portions bordering on the Trinity, San Jacinto, and Sabine rivers, must pour their rich trade into the City of Galveston, and draw their supplies of foreign articles for consumption through the same channel. A surface of country making four or five States, as large as Mississippi or Alabama, must empty its rich product of the great staple, cotton, into the City of Galveston. This