Who Was Harbert Davenport — and Why His Words Matter
The following letter was written on June 3, 1932, by Harbert Davenport (1882–1957) — one of the most respected lawyers, historians, and archivists ever to study the legal foundations of the Lower Rio Grande Valley.
Davenport was a Brownsville attorney, a meticulous legal scholar, and a man deeply committed to preserving South Texas history. A graduate of the University of Texas School of Law, he practiced in Brownsville for decades and later became widely known for his historical research into Spanish and Mexican land grants, early border litigation, and the legal chaos that shaped the Rio Grande frontier.
He was not merely a local lawyer. Davenport served as president of the Texas State Historical Association and worked closely with major archives across Texas. His research methods were rigorous. He chased down original court files, land grant records, municipal proceedings, legislative acts, and private correspondence — often reconstructing complicated nineteenth-century cases from scattered documents.
This 1932 letter, addressed to Mrs. Mattie Austin Hatcher, archivist of the University of Texas Library, reflects Davenport doing what he did best: untangling one of the most complex land title controversies in Texas history.
The dispute he describes — involving Charles Stillman, Simon Mussina, Samuel A. Belden, Basse & Hord, Josefa Cavazos, and the City of Brownsville — was not a minor quarrel. It was a decades-long legal struggle over:
The Espíritu Santo Spanish land grant
The ejidos of Matamoros
The founding of Brownsville (1848)
The Santa Isabel grant (Point Isabel)
Competing Mexican, Texan, municipal, and private titles
Federal court litigation stretching from Galveston to Washington
And eventually, review by the Supreme Court of the United States
Davenport wrote this nearly eighty years after the original events, drawing from court files, legislative records, and private papers — including the Wells Papers, where this letter was preserved. At one time, Davenport had been a law partner of Wells, which explains why the document survived in that collection.
What makes this letter extraordinary is not merely its detail, but its tone. Davenport is analytical, candid, occasionally sharp, and clearly opinionated. He is not writing for publication — he is explaining the tangled story to a fellow archivist. That makes this account unusually frank.
He walks through:
The speculative ambitions of Stillman, Belden, and Mussina
The Townsite Company partnership structure
The use of Mexican “labor” titles and Texas headright certificates
The political maneuvering behind Brownsville’s incorporation and repeal
The Cavazos litigation in federal court
The destruction of Mussina’s interest
The factional “Reds vs. Blues” elections of 1852
The impeachment of Judge Watrous
The reversal of title decisions after the Civil War
And the ultimate clouding of Brownsville and Point Isabel land titles for decades
Davenport was writing at a time when many of the original participants were long gone — but the consequences of their actions were still visible in Valley land records.
For modern readers, this document is invaluable. It is not simply a retelling of litigation. It is a window into:
How towns were founded on legal uncertainty
How speculative partnerships operated
How Mexican and Texan sovereignty overlapped
How municipal “ejido” claims collided with Spanish grants
And how personal ambition shaped border history
Davenport understood that Brownsville was not born cleanly. It was argued into existence.
What follows is his narrative — preserved as written in 1932 — a historian-lawyer’s reconstruction of one of the most consequential title battles in Texas border history.
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June 3, 1932
DAVENPORT, WEST
& RANSOME
ATTORNEYS AT LAW
BROWNSVILLE, TEXAS
To:
Mrs. Mattie Austin
Hatcher
Archivist,
University Library
Austin Texas
Dear Mrs. Hatcher:
[Begins by noting
he’s been digging hard and found some good stuff, but not the papers archives
for Basse, Hord or Simon Mussina.]
The town of Matamoros, as you know,
was created by the Congress of Tamaulipas from the old “Congregacion del
Refugio” in 1826. Its business was in the hands of French, Irish, Spanish and
American merchants, most of whom came to Matamoros from New Orleans. Among them
were Charles Stillman, who was at Matamoros as early as 1834, John
Treanor, of about the same vintage, Samuel A. Belden, who came at a
much later date, and Simon Mussina, who was at Matamoros at least as
early as 1842, in which year Treanor failed in his business and Mussina
acquired titles to his claims within the present limits of the City of
Matamoros, which had been sold to satisfy his creditors.
Simon Mussina
seems to have been involved financially since his business at Matamoros and
Brownsville was conducted by him in the name of his brother, Jacob Mussina, by
Simon as Attorney in Fact.
After the American
occupation in 1846, Mussina, Treanor, Belden and Stillman all foresaw great
business opportunities from development of town sites on the American side of
the Rio Grande, opposite Matamoros, and at Point Isabel. The Santa Isabel
Grant, on which the only available site for the latter town was situated, was
then owned by the widow and daughters of the original grantee. Simon Mussina
obtained from these ladies a contract to purchase Point Isabel.
The site of the
proposed town about Fort Brown, that is, Brownsville, had originally been
granted to Jose Salvador de la Garza, as part of the Espiritu Santa Grant of
approximately sixty leagues of land.
When Matamoros was
founded as a villa in 1826 the municipal authorities were instructed to
expropriate the necessary four leagues for ejidos. Approximately 5000
acres of this ejidos lay on the left or North bank of the river, then owned and
in the possession of the heirs of Jose Salvador de la Garza. The constitution of Tamaulipas prohibited the
appropriation of private property without payment being first made. The
Matamoros officials, however, although they could have settled the matter by
giving the heirs of Salvador de la Garza raw lands elsewhere, failed to do so,
and although the City of Matamoros surveyed off, and occupied the ejidos, and
granted “Labor” rights upon it, and though its tenants under such grants
continued in possession for more than twenty years, it never completed the
expropriation proceedings, nor paid the owners for the land. When the American
Army took Matamoros, the archives were sealed, and were not reopened until
after the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Consequently, when Stillman, Belden and
Musssina planned to found a new town at Brownsville, early in 1848, they were
unable to verify their assumption that the Matamoros title was good.
Among them they
proceeded to purchase from the claimants under Matamoros “Labor” titles,
covering the proposed site of Brownsville which they likewise sought to
strengthen by locating on the same land Texas Headright Certificates, on the
theory that the ejidos, being public property, reverted to the State of
Texas, and might become subject to location.
Stillman, Bedlen
and Mussina, during the summer of 1848, formed a “Townsite Company,” in fact a
partnership, which caused the town site of Brownsville to be surveyed by George
Lyon, Deputy District Surveyor, and offered the lots for sale under their warranty
deeds or bonds for title, as the purchaser might elect. The “Townsite Company”
was in fact a partnership owned by the proportions of one-half by Charles
Stillman, one-fourth by Samuel A. Belden, and one-fourth by Jacob Mussina, for
whom, however, Simon Mussina always acted. Lots of the sale value of several
hundred thousand dollars were sold, and Brownsville rapidly became a town of
two or three thousand inhabitants.
Meantime, in
October, 1848, John Teanor, who had married a daughter of Josefa Cavazos, who
as between herself and other claimants under Jose Salvador de la Garza were
entitled as her distributive share of the Espiritu Santo Grant, to that portion
of it on which the new town site was located, obtained from the Congress of
Tamaulipas a decree that as between the original owners and the City of
Matamoros, title was in the original owners by reason of the failure of the
City to make payment for the ejidos lands
before they were appropriated.
Through the
greater portion of 1849, sales of the Brownsville lots continued brisk, but
about the first of December of that year, Stillman and Belden, who were
solvent, evidently became worried as to the validity of their title, and their
consequent liability on their warranties and title bonds. Their solution of the
problem was: 1st, to arrange through John Treanor a purchase from
his mother-in-law of the Espiritu Santo title; and, 2nd, to convey
their entire interest in the town site to Elisha Basse and Robert H. Hord.
Basse and Horde were young lawyers who came to Brownsville in 1848, and who had
been actively employed by the Townsite Company. During this same period, Simon
Mussina began publishing “The American Flag,” a newspaper begun at Matamoros
during the occupation, and which Mussina had purchased and moved to Brownsville
to further the interests of the Townsite Company when it was organized. As I
gather the facts, Mussina wrote for the paper, but E.B. Scarborough was the
publisher and, perhaps, in a sense, the editor.
Robert H. Hord was
a nephew of Senator Henry H. Foote, of Mississippi (author if “Texas and
Texans”), and was undoubtedly a young man of genuine brains and ability. His
English style and legal arguments were much past the ordinary. He and Mussina
were at the time close friends. At that time, Angela Garcia, one of the owners
of the Santa Isabel Grant, was the wife of Constantino de Tavarna, Mexican
statesman of an earlier day, and author of the famous “Decree of April 6th,
1830.” Both Mussina and Hord had the confidence of Madam de Taverna, and her
son, and her daughter, the other owners of Point Isabel. These, besides owning
the Santa Isabel Grant, had purchased a one-sixth interest in the Espiritu
Santo sixty-league grant.
Meantime, the
Legislature of Texas in 1850, influenced, doubtless, by Stephen Powers, former
New York politician, personal friend of Martin Van Buren, and under his
administration American Diplomatic Representative in Switzerland and several
minor German states, passed, in January 1850, a law incorporating the City of
Brownsville, and granting to that city that portion of the ejidos of
Matamoros that lay on the North bank of the river; thus further complicating
the title and affairs of the Brownsville Townsite Company.
Besides this,
Josefa Cavazos, John Treanor’s mother-in-law, who as between her co-tenants in
the Espiritu Santo and herself was entitled to the Brownsville land as a part
of her distributive share, brought a suit in equity in the Federal Court against
Stillman, Belden and Mussina to quiet her title to the ejidos lands, and
another against Simon Mussina to recover the land he had acquired from John
Treanor in 1842. Before this suit was
brought, or at least before any active effort had been made to bring it to
trial, Stillman had in fact quieted his title against this claim by arranging
to purchase the Josefa Cavazos title, but since this did not dispose of the
City, or Matamorors title, he and Belden transferred their whole Brownsville
property to Elisha Basse and Robert H. Hord, who thereupon became the
ostensible owners. In doing so they disregarded Mussina’s claim to a one-fourth
interest entirely, and Hord, in explaining the situation to prospective
purchasers, stated that this was because Mussina had failed to comply with his
obligation to Stillman and Belden to pay one-fourth of the expenses and
purchase money. Since Stillman and Belden had collected many thousands of
dollars more than the purchase price from sales of lots, this was obviously a
mere matter of accounting, and the true facts seem to be that the plan was to
wipe out the Mussinas, and give Basse and Hord the benefit of their former
one-fourth interest.
Meantime, by
reason of the City title claim, sale of the town lots in Brownsville
practically ceased. The case of Cavazos vs. Stillman was tried in 1851, and the
decree entered at Galveston in January 1852. As the parties in this case were
finally arranged, William G. Hale* represented Josefa Cavazos and Estafana
Goseasochea (sp?) [de Cortina] while Basse and Hord purported to represent
Madam [de] Tarnava and her mother and sister, and Estafana’s sister, who had
been dismissed from the suit as plaintiffs and made parties defendant. The
decree very properly sustained the Josefa Cavazos title, but was so arranged as
to apparently make the Espiritu Santo title include the whole of the Santa
Isabel Grant, and consequently wiped out the rights of the defendants
represented by Hord, and the Mussinas, who had bought from them, to Point
Isabel as well.
Meantime Hord, at
Austin, had lobbied through a bill repealing the Act creating the City of
Brownsville. The combined result of the decree in Cavazos vs. Stillman, and of
the repeal of the Act incorporating the City of Brownsville, was to divide the
inhabitants of Brownsville and Point Isabel into two hostile factions. The
election of 1852 was little short of a battle; since most of the voters were
ignorant Mexicans, who understood emblems better than principles, the Stillman,
Belden and Hord party became the “Reds,” and the City title party the “Blues.”
The “Blues” won, and in 1853 Brownsville was reincorporated, and its ejidos
title confirmed insofar as the Legislature could confirm it.
In the meantime,
Simon Mussina, whose claim to a one-fourth interest in the City of Brownsville,
and to the whole of Santa Isabel, had been effectively wiped out by Stillman
and Hord, proved to be a real fighter.
He was,
incidentally, an Italian Jew [probably not]. He brought about, in 1852, a
congressional investigation of the conduct of Judge Watrous in connection with
Cavazos vs. Stillman and eventually, in 1858, succeeded in having him impeached
by the House of Representatives.
Meantime, at
Brownsville and Point Isabel, one election after another was being fought out
on the issues between the “Stillman, or Basse and Hord, Title,” and the “City
Title.”
A new suit in the
State Court between Basse and Hord and the City of Brownsville was tried in
Calhoun County in 1858, and resulted in a judgment in favor of the Basse and
Hord title. The case was appealed, lay dormant during the Civil War, and the
judgment was eventually reversed by the Supreme Court of Texas in 1871.
The law then
permitted a second suit in actions for title, if brought within one year. The attorneys for the City, in their haste to
eject Stillman, brought proceedings against him without waiting for the year to
expire; Stillman, by then being a non-resident, took the case into the Federal
Courts, where it was eventually decided, in 1879, in his favor, and against the
City title, by the Supreme Court of the United States.
As a result of
this litigation, the title to both Brownsville and Point Isabel remained more
or less clouded for thirty years, and as a result neither town could grow or
develop, and the anticipation of Stillman, Belden and Mussina of profits
arising from great cities developing there, were never realized.
Stillman vs.
Cavazos ruined Basse and Hord. It was obvious from the record that Hord
permitted, and even invited, a decree against his clients, while at the same
time himself holding title under the adverse parties. Elisha Basse was at one
time elected Chief Justice of Cameron County, but there is a judgment of the
District Court here, rendered by Edmund J. Davis (afterwards Governor), as
District Judge, in 1857, which castigates him for his conduct of the affairs of
that office. Even before the judgment of the District Court in favor of the
Basse and Hord title, in 1858, their title had returned, through various
channels, to Charles Stillman, Samuel A. Belden, and William G. Hale, the
latter being the lawyer who had prosecuted the suit for Cavazos in 1852; and
who had, as a result of that service, a contingent interest in proceeds of sale
of the Brownsville town property.
What became of
Elisha Basse and Robert H. Hord I do not know. Both of them, apparently, were
gone from Brownsville by the time of the Cortinas Raid in 1859; at least, they
were not mentioned in the voluminous documents pertaining to that episode.
As I previously
wrote you, Edward R. Hord remained on the border, and was universally esteemed.
Sincerely,
Harbert Davenport.
Key Figures Mentioned in Davenport’s Letter
Charles Stillman (1810–1875)
American merchant and financier who became one of the founders of Brownsville in 1848. Stillman began trading in Matamoros in the 1830s and later organized the Brownsville Townsite Company. Though his Texas-based land claims were initially defeated in the Cavazos litigation (1852), he ultimately regained dominant influence over Brownsville property through later federal court rulings. He went on to become one of the most powerful financiers in Texas and New York.
Simon Mussina (c. 1810s–?)
Merchant active in Matamoros and Brownsville by the early 1840s. Mussina acted as attorney-in-fact for his brother, Jacob Mussina. Initially a partner in the Brownsville Townsite Company, he later fell out with Stillman and Belden. Mussina fought aggressively in court and even pushed for a congressional investigation that led to the impeachment proceedings against Judge Watrous. His financial and legal battles shaped early Brownsville politics.
Jacob Mussina
Brother of Simon Mussina and nominal holder of a one-fourth interest in the Brownsville Townsite Company. Simon conducted business in Jacob’s name. Their interest in both Brownsville and Point Isabel was effectively eliminated through litigation and strategic transfers.
Samuel A. Belden (1812–1884)
Merchant and early Brownsville founder. Belden partnered with Stillman in townsite development and regional trade. Like Stillman, he initially relied on Matamoros labor titles and Texas headright certificates before the Spanish grant claims were judicially revived.
Elisha Basse
Young lawyer who arrived in Brownsville in 1848. Along with Robert H. Hord, he became the ostensible owner of the Brownsville townsite after Stillman and Belden transferred their interests. Basse later served briefly as Chief Justice of Cameron County but faced criticism in judicial opinions for his conduct in office. His fortunes declined after the title litigation.
Robert H. Hord
Nephew of U.S. Senator Henry S. Foote of Mississippi. A gifted lawyer and political strategist, Hord was deeply involved in the Brownsville title disputes and legislative maneuvering. Davenport’s letter suggests Hord played a sophisticated — and controversial — role in shaping the Cavazos decree and the repeal of Brownsville’s city charter.
Maria (Josefa) Cavazos
Heir to the 1781 Spanish land grant known as the Espíritu Santo Grant. Through marriage into the Cavazos family, she became central to the federal litigation (Cavazos v. Stillman). The 1852 federal decree affirmed the validity of the original Spanish grant and declared adverse Texas-derived claims invalid.
José Salvador de la Garza (18th century)
Original grantee of the Espíritu Santo tract under the Spanish Crown in 1781. His grant included the land that later became Brownsville and Fort Brown. The survival of this colonial title under American sovereignty lay at the heart of decades of litigation.
John Treanor (or Teanor)
Early Matamoros merchant who married into the Cavazos family. His involvement connected the Spanish grant heirs to the commercial ambitions of Brownsville’s founders.
Judge John C. Watrous (1801–1874)
United States District Judge for Texas who presided over Cavazos v. Stillman (1852). His rulings in land cases became highly controversial. Simon Mussina later helped initiate congressional impeachment proceedings against Watrous, alleging bias and misconduct in Texas land litigation.
William G. Hale
Attorney who represented the Cavazos interests in federal court. Later obtained a contingent interest in the proceeds of Brownsville property through his role in the litigation.
Stephen Powers
Former New York politician and diplomat who influenced Texas legislation incorporating Brownsville in 1850, adding another layer of complexity to the town’s title structure.
Antonio Longoria
Claimant representing rival interests under portions of the Spanish grant, later protesting federal recognition of Cavazos’ claim for rent of Fort Brown.
George Lyon
Deputy District Surveyor who surveyed the original Brownsville townsite in 1848 on behalf of the Townsite Company.
E. B. Scarborough
Publisher associated with The American Flag, the newspaper moved from Matamoros to Brownsville to promote Townsite Company interests.
That diagram visually shows the layered collision:
• The 1781 Spanish Espíritu Santo Grant as the foundational tract
• The 1826 Matamoros Ejidos claim carved within it
• The 1848 Texas Headright locations placed on top of land assumed to be public
This is the core structural conflict that triggered decades of litigation.
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