Miscellaneous San Augustine County Records
Scope and Contents
This collection consists of miscellaneous San Augustine County items acquired and collected over the years. There are several kinds of receipts and some ballots for a pair of county elections.
Dates
- Creation: 1928-1977
Language of Materials
The collection is in English.
Conditions Governing Access
Open for research.
Biographical / Historical
San Augustine County is in the pine belt of East Texas and is bounded by Shelby County on the north, Sabine County on the east, and Nacogdoches and Angelina Counties on the west and south. Inhabited for centuries by the Ais tribe of the Hasinai Indians (part of the Caddo Confederacy) at the time of European contact, what would become San Augustine County remained sparsely settled by colonists through the first half of the 18th century. Most notably there was the Mission Nuestra Senora de los Dolores de los Ais, built by Father Antonio de Jesus Margil in 1716. The purpose of the mission was to convert Indians and establish a Spanish influence in an area contested with the French. The mission lasted only 3 years, but the Spanish came back shortly thereafter and remained a presence in San Augustine, with the exception of a brief period in the 1770s, until the Mexican Revolution. The county was part of what was known as the "Neutral Ground" (the disputed, and therefore undefined border between Spanish/Mexican Texas and American Louisiana) and home to many squatters settling without land grants in the late 1700s and early 1800s. It was not until 1827 that Mexico organized San Augustine into the District of Ayish Bayou. In 1834, authorities changed the District to the Municipality of San Augustine, which included present San Augustine, Sabine and Shelby counties as well as parts of Panola, Newton, and Jasper counties. Several years later (1837), the new Republic of Texas created San Augustine County, with the county seat at San Augustine.
References:
Vista K. McCroskey, "SAN AUGUSTINE COUNTY," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hcs02), accessed February 15, 2012. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
Extent
0.10 Cubic Feet
Arrangement
This collection is described in five folders and housed with other collections in a clamshell box.
San Augustine County-County Records (B-0091) and San Augustine County-Business Records (B-0092) were consolidated into Miscellaneous San Augustine County Records (B-0088) in October 2018.
- Title
- Guide to the Miscellaneous San Augustine County Records
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the East Texas Research Center Repository