Without a murmur I reconveyed all the property to the original owners and lost the eighteen hundred I had paid the Marshal.
Then the Gillett’s creditors sold them out. I had held possession of the town tract and paid taxes on it for five years.
It has been said that I purchased the property of Simon Hart at the confiscation sale. That is not true. I purchased that property at Sheriff’s sale on a judgment for false imprisonment, which I obtained against Hart in a Texas court, which judgment was twice affirmed by the Supreme Court of Texas.
In 1871 I was the owner of a portion of Franklin Heights, of the city of El Paso, then known as Hart Survey, No. 9.
Being in Washington City I met my friend, Gen. Robert B. Mitchell, and gave him a power of attorney to sell the property. He sold to different purchasers, to the amount of $14,000, and we divided the proceeds share and share alike.
The property was then considered valueless by those who knew less than we did, but it is now worth forty-fold what we received for it. Among the purchasers were George W. Gray of Washington City and one Peck of Kansas, and others.
The recording of the deeds in El Paso County aroused the jealousy and hatred of my El Paso enemies, and, heedless of what harm they might do to others so long as there was a prospect of injuring me, they wrote the purchasers that I had no title to Survey No. 9, that the property was worthless, and that I was a swindler.
It is strange that the purchasers took these statements at par, and instead of investigating or communicating with me they sued me in Washington City for the purchase money, charging fraud, and got service on me there. I demurred them out of court, and came home, and being angry with the purchasers I paid no further attention to them or their troubles.
None of them, ever asserted their rights to the property, WHICH THEY COULD HAVE DONE SUCCESSFULLY IF IN TIME.
These strange facts being of record in El Paso County have caused a lot of talk, and many a lawyer has believed he had made an important discovery and has had visions of profitable litigation. I have been interviewed about this transaction one hundred times, more or less.
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