Veteran Bio

Mr. Blackwell was a member of Captain Henry W. Karnes' Company of Cavalry at San Jacinto and was on July 2, 1838 issued Donation Certificate No. 401 for 640 acres of land for having participated in the battle. He was Reading Clerk in the House of Representatives in the First Congress of the Republic, October 3, 1836 to June 13, 1837. In 1838 he was clerk of the Brazoria County Board of Land Commissioners. In 1841 he was District Clerk of the Second Judicial District, Brazoria.

The following letter from Mr. Blackwell is printed on page 556, Vol. 3 of the papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar. It was written at Brazoria, July 23, 1841 and addressed to President M. B. Lamar at Austin:

"I received a letter a few days ago from Wm. G. Dryden, he was in Santa Fe when he wrote, he stated he had written to you, but requested me to write to you, as you might not get his letter, and inform you that all was right in Santa Fe; he said he had conversed with the Governor of Santa Fe and that he was well as the people were willing that Texas might establish her law and hold her Government over that country, to use his words 'all is right then for a project of that kind'. One other piece of information of his is that the Comanches have gone North to make a treaty with the northern tribes, and those that attempt to make the trip to Santa Fe will be in no danger from them, this is fortunate for those that have started; he speaks highly of the country, and its prosperous conditions as well as the advantages that might result to Texas by such a union. His letter was date the 10th March 1841; he got to Santa Fe in September last. I write you this that if you should not have received the letter he wrote to you, that you may know the kind of reception the party you have dispatched to that country with on their arrival."

In the Probate Minutes of Brazoria County, Book F, page 86, it is stated that Mr. Blackwell died in Brazoria County in March, 1851.

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