TEXAN EMIGRATION AND LAND COMPANY

TEXAN EMIGRATION AND LAND COMPANY, also known as the Peters' Colony Company, introduced 2,205 families into north central Texas between 1841 and 1848 as part of the basic settlement of seventeen present-day counties, which include the cities of Dallas, Fort Worth, and Wichita Falls. Organized by W. S. Peters and associates of Louisville, Kentucky, and Cincinnati, Ohio, the company entered into contract with the Republic of Texas on 9 November 1841. The Republic of Texas distributed free land on its northern Indian frontier in parcels of 640 acres, while the company furnished the colonists with log cabins, rifles, and ammunition. Acrimonious disputes arose when other settlers, acting independently, moved into land unoccupied but promised to the company, and claimed homesteads by preemption. The only organized opposition in Texas to annexation in 1845 came from agents of the company, who feared abrogation of their colonization contract. Conflicts waxed after annexation, leading to two armed raids by settlers, in 1848 and 1852, on company headquarters at Stewartsville, Collin County. Land title claims were quieted only in 1853, when a law was passed granting settlers the right to land actually occupied as a homestead. The company was then compensated in part with a tract of unoccupied public land in west Texas.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Connor, Seymour V. Kentucky Colonization in Texas: A History of the Peters Colony. Baltimore: Clearfield, 1994.

Sam H.Acheson/a. r.

See alsoAnnexation of Territory ; Land Claims ; Land Companies ; Texas Public Lands .