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Partly-printed DS as governor of Texas, signed “L. S. Ross,” one page, 14.5 x 13, September 16, 1889. A compelling signed Texas land grant issued during the governorship of Lawrence Sullivan “Sul” Ross—Texas Ranger, Confederate general, and hero of the Battle of Pease River, where Cynthia Ann Parker was famously recovered in 1860. This grant is dated September 16, 1889, and is for 160 acres of state land located along the waters of the Pease River, placing it in proximity to the very terrain that shaped Ross’s legacy.
Also countersigned by Secretary of State J.S. Hogg, who would later serve as governor himself. The survey references nearby watercourses and land features typical of northwest Texas grants and shows signs of prior folding, with light age toning and minor edge wear.
What distinguishes this document from others of its type is location and signer. Most Sul Ross-signed land grants were routine instruments of state land policy. But this one references the Pease River—evoking the very region where Ross, then a young Texas Ranger captain, led a reprisal raid that would become one of the most storied episodes in Texas frontier history. The recovery of Cynthia Ann Parker, mother of future Comanche chief Quanah Parker, was not just a tactical victory but a symbolic one: the return of a settler woman long assumed lost to the Comanche, and the beginning of the end of Comanche resistance in North Texas.
Ross went on to serve as governor (1887–1891), where he proved a capable and progressive leader. But his identity remained indelibly tied to that winter morning on the Pease, when his unit surprised a Comanche encampment and recovered Parker, unaware at first who she was. An evocative piece that combines land policy, frontier memory, and one of the most resonant names in Texas history.
Condition: In fine condition, with a few small stains.
