Past preservation efforts under previous county clerks did not have the benefit of modern technology. He said specialized types of paper can be used to mend or repair holes in a page. Sometimes it’s actually eaten a hole through the page.” “Frequently the ink has imparted damage to the document. “It has to be cleaned, deacidified,” he said. He said every page undergoes a careful process. Tears wanted to run down my eyes, but I’m the leader.”Ĭarlson said the Dallas-based firm Kofile has been contracted to preserve the Spanish archives. “David was there and, you know I got chills. Adame-Clark choked up as she studied them with David Carlson, the county’s Spanish archivist. Other records in the archives include the bills of sale of local enslaved people. He was killed in the Battle of the Alamo in 1836. His wife preceded him in death from cholera in 1833.
It includes his signature and a tornado like swirl he penned beneath it, a sort of early fraud prevention measure.īowie, in his 30s, also shaved a few years off his age on the contract to his 19-year-old bride, according to a county archivist. Included among the papers is Jim Bowie’s wedding contract to Ursula Veramendi from 1831. And we gave birth to 128 counties,” she said. We have Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico, Colorado and a little north of Wyoming. “People don’t understand that the records in Bexar County used to include also five different states, you know. So why would researchers beyond Bexar County be so interested in the old archives found here?Īdame-Clark said after Spanish and Mexican rule over Texas ended in 1836, the newly created Bexar County of the Republic of Texas was huge. County Clerk Lucy Adame-Clark led the project to preserve and protect the records and make them available online. The royal seal of Spain’s King Ferdinand VII, who ruled in the early 1800s, can also be seen in the Spanish archives. The oldest local document is a Spanish land grant that dates back to 1736. The Veramendi and Bowie marriage contract is a part of the Bexar County Spanish Archive’s special collection.
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