870, however, the man who
then acted as Governor of the Territory, although otherwise of
irreproachable character, permitted an act of vandalism almost without
its parallel. The archives had accumulated in the palace to a vast
extent: the original good order in which they were kept had been totally
neglected during and since the war of secession; there was not even a
custodian for them. So the head of the executive of this territory
suffered its archives to be sold as waste paper, even sometimes used as
kindling in the offices. Of the entire carefully nursed documentary
treasures, the accumulation of 190 years, the Hon. Samuel Ellison, of
this city (notwithstanding his feeble health), has been able to register
about fifty bundles (_legajos_), whereas wagon-loads were scattered or
sold for wrapping.

Many of the intelligent inhabitants attempted to save what they could,
and there are some who succeeded to a limited extent; but of what yet
remained in the palace, reduced to a sufficiently small bulk as not to
be "in the way" any longer, even the valuable journals of Otermin and
Vargas were considerably reduced through further decay.

This has been, in times of profound peace and in the nineteenth century,
the fate of the archives of New Mexico.

Ever since, the legislature of the territory has been, in fact, utterly
neglectful of its public documents. Each and every reminder in the shape
of a petition has been disregarded, and only Governor L. Wallace has at
last succeeded in having them overhauled. Hon. W. G. Ritch effected
their removal to a suitable place, and it is to the acts of these
gentlemen, and to the labor of love of Mr. Ellison, that we owe the
preservation of what now remains.

What little documentary evidence has, therefore, been left at my
disposal, contains, as might be supposed, meagre information concerning
the pueblo of Pecos. The older church annals I have not been able to
find, for those at the Plaza de Pecos date back only to 1862. Whither
they have gone I am unable to tell, except that they are not at Santa
Fe.

About the year 1628, through the action of Fray Francisco de
Apodaca,[160] then Commissary-General of the Franciscan order in Mexico,
religious life in this territory obtained a new impulse. Until then the
work performed had been almost exclusively missionary work; the priests
had (and still have) enormous districts to visit. Thus: that of the
first priest of Pecos embraced from N. to