Texas Legation Papers have arrived on campus

Mary Volcansek, dean of AddRan College of Humanities and Social Sciences, June Koelker, dean of the library, Todd Kerstetter, interim director of the Center for Texas Studies, Victor Boschini, Chancellor, and Nowell Donovan, Provost

Fort Worth, TX

2/1/2007

TCU officials announced the official arrival of the Texas Legation papers on campus in a ceremony today in the Mary Couts Burnett library. Chancellor Victor J. Boschini, Provost Nowell Donovan, June Koelker, dean the library, Todd Kerstetter, interim director of the Center for Texas Studies,  Mary Volcansek, dean of AddRan College of Humanities and Social Sciences officiated.

Last November, TCU and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission unveiled a collection of state historical documents touched by the legendary Sam Houston and Stephen F. Austin, which have been on a 161-year adventure. The collection has been conserved through the efforts of private donors and the Texas State Library and Archives Commission. The preservation of the records is now complete and they have arrived at TCU to be housed in the Special Collections area of the Mary Couts Burnett Library for five years. At the end of their five–year loan to TCU, the Legation Records will return to the Commission for permanent retention in the State Archives.

The Texas Legation Records are a collection of some 250 documents created and received by the officials who maintained the official Texas Legation at Washington, D. C., from December 1836 until December 1845, when Texas was annexed into the United States.  The records comprising the collection cover primarily the years 1836 to 1839 and consist mainly of the dispatches that passed between the Texas Government and its commissioners and chargés d’affaires at Washington, and of the notes exchanged by that Government and the United States chargés in Texas.  According to Texas State Archivist Chris LaPlante, many of the original documents in the collection have never been seen by scholars or the general public.