Abstract of the Original Titles of Record in the General Land Office of Texas

By: Mary Lewis Ulmer, Pub. 1838, Reprinted 2022, 186 pages, soft cover, ISBN #978-0-89308-849-8. This book is one of the most important and most useful books on early Texas. It contains a listing by colony, alphabetically, of every settler granted land in Texas between 1791 and 1836. Upon this list all land titles in Texas were based, and the land ownership established. In addition, following the names of the grantees, there are columns giving date of titles, quantity of land received, location of the land, and remarks, such as "Sam Houston and Phil Sublett, Agents." This is one of the fundamental sources of information on the settlement of Texas, moistly for the period ending in 1835. The period actually covered is from the Spanish period through the Mexican grants and the opening of Texas to foreign settlement, principally by Anglo-Americans, to the Declaration of Independence. The date of the earliest grant is October 18, 1791, to Edward Murphy, official Indian trader at Nacogdoches and the last one, February 27, 1836 to William F. Gray of Austin's Colony.