Maxwell Land Grant
Beaubien's son-in-law Lucien B. Maxwell attained ownership of the grant and sold it to European investors in 1870.
Gold and coal mining, ranching, and agriculture were the principal economic activities on grant lands.
In the Colfax County War and Stonewall incident in the 1870s and 1880s several people were killed and the U.S. military had to be called in to maintain order.
Owners of the land within the grant in the 20th and 21st century include the Vermejo Park Ranch, Philmont Scout Ranch, the National Rifle Association of America, the Maxwell National Wildlife Refuge, Fishers Peak State Park, and the U.S. Forest Service.
[10] In the 1840s, during the last years of Mexican rule, in what have been called "grants of desperation," the New Mexican governor made several large individual grants to reward supporters and cronies, secure the borders of New Mexico against Indians, and counter growing U.S. influence, including fear of invasion of New Mexico by either the U.S. or Texas which was an independent county from 1836-1845.
[11][12] Carlos Beaubien (often called Charles) was a French-Canadian trapper who became a Mexican citizen and a prosperous merchant in Taos, New Mexico His partner, Guadalupe Miranda, was the secretary to Governor Manuel Armijo in Santa Fe.
Padre Martinez (Antonio José Martínez) claimed the grant was illegal but a lawsuit was decided in favor of Beaubien and Miranda on April 18, 1844.
Beaubien and Bent began settlement of the grant land along Ponil Creek and near the present site of Cimarron.
[15] The Jicarilla Apache, the original inhabitants of the grant lands, resisted white settlements until about 1855 when they were forced to sign a peace treaty with the U.S and began to move westward to an Indian Reservation.
In 1860, Maxwell built a large home in Cimarron, a stop on the Mountain Branch of the Santa Fe Trail.
[18] Maxwell made money by supplying beef and other commodities to the soldiers at Fort Union and to the Jicarillas living in the area.
He acquired owernshp of all the land within the grant from the other heirs and lived in "frontier splendor"...lavishly hospitable to all visitors.
Maxwell sold the grant in 1870 for $650,000 to a group of Anglo and Hispanic land speculators called the Santa Fe Ring who quickly marketed it to English investors for $1,350,000 who then found Dutch investors to issue $5,000,000 in stock in the Maxwell Land Grant and Railroad Company.
By contrast, the Anglo system demanded the identification of owners, precise definition of what was owned, and legal documents substantiating ownership.
[24] In 1870, when the British and later Dutch owners took ownership of the Maxwell grant a substantial population of Anglo, Hispanic, and Jicarilla miners and farmers were living on the land.
[25] By the mid 1870s it was a ghost town as the mines ceased to be profitable, but farmers and ranchers occupied lands and some of the miners settled down within the grant area.
[26] Attempts to evict the settlers on the grant, who the company called "squatters," were aided by members of the unsavory Santa Fe Ring of land speculators, several of whom occupied prominent positions in the New Mexican government.
Many of the settlers either departed or were evicted,[27] but in 1885 there were still 380 homesites, divided about equally between Anglos and Hispanics, in the grant area.
A large group of settlers, mostly Hispanics, gathered to protest and surrounded a hotel in Stonewall where the company's employees barricaded themselves.
The company's top priority was to obtain clear ownership of the land and the leases were in accord with the Hispanic custom in New Mexico of "partido."
The Maxwell company was also mindful of the "wars" in other parts of New Mexico in which Hispanics had successfully organized to win partial victories over land speculators and developers.
[31][32] In 1894 the Supreme Court reaffirmed its 1887 decision erasing the last hopes of settlers for legal remedies to prevent their expulsion from the grant lands.
[38] In 1902, William Bartlett, a wealthy grain operator from Chicago, bought 205,000 acres (830 km2) of the grant along the drainage of the Vermejo River.
Under the agreement, he withheld part of the last payment until the Maxwell Land Grant Company evicted the last of the Hispanic "squatters" who had lived for many years along the Vermejo River.
In 1926, Vermejo Park became an exclusive fishing and hunting club whose guests included many wealthy businessmen and Hollywood celebrities.
In two separate gifts in 1938 and 1941, Phillips donated 127,395 acres (515.55 km2) as a wilderness camping area for the Boy Scouts of America.
In 1963, Norton Clapp, an officer of the National Council of the Boy Scouts of America, donated another piece of the Maxwell Land Grant to Philmont.
