Amanuensis Monday:Notice of Hearing to Appropriate Public Water - 1918

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

I continue my project to transcribe family letters, journals, newspaper articles, audiotapes, and other historical artifacts. Not only do the documents contain genealogical information, the words breathe life into kin - some I never met - others I see a time in their life before I knew them.

This week I transcribe a newspaper article from the El Paso Herald, which I found at ChroniclingAmerica. The article mentions my great grandfather, Melvin E. Van Every.

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El Paso Herald
May 14, 1918, page 11

NOTICE OF HEARING TO APPROPRIATE PUBLIC WATER. THE STATE OF TEXAS.

Notice is hereby given, to whom concerned, that the Elam Ditch, an inuncorporated association, of which R. C. Elam, whose postoffice address is Fabens, Texas, is president, R. Keyes, whose postoffice address is Fabens, Texas, is vice-presient, and M. E. Van Every, whose postoffice address is Fabens, Texas, is secretary and treasurer, did on the 30th day of March, A.D. 1918, file an application in the office of the Board of Water Engineers of the State of Texas in which it applies for a permit to appropriate for the purpose of irrigating 631 acres of land hereinafter described sufficient water from the unappropriated waters of the State of Texas, said waters so appropriated to be diverted from the Rio Grande by an intake and headgate located on Survey No. 131. Block 1. San Elizario Grant, on the northeast bank of the Rio Grande in El Paso county, distant in a southeasterly direction from Fabens one mile, the diversion to be by gravity and distributed through a canal or ditch eight feet wide at the bottom by ten feet at the surface and three feet deep.

You are hereby further notified that the lands proposed to be irrigated are located in Surveys Nos. 133, 135, 136, 139, 140, 162, 163, 164, 165, 166 and 167, containing about 631 acres.

A hearing on the said appropriation of the said Elam Ditch will be held by the Board of Water Engineers of the State of Texas at its office, in the city of Austin, county of Travis, said state on Saturday, the 1st day of June, A.D. 1918, beginning at ten o’clock a.m. at which time and place all parties interested may appear and be heard. Such hearing will be continued from time to time and from place to place, if necessary, until such determination has been made relative to said application as the said Board of Water Engineers may deem right, equitable, and proper.

Given under, and by virtue of, an order of the Board of Water Engineers of the State of Texas, at the office of said board, in Austin, Texas, this the 20th day of April, A.D. 1918.
(Seal) W.T. POTTER
ROLLEN J. WINDROW
C.S. CLARK
Board of Water Engineers
Attn: James Hays Quarles, Secretary

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Notes:

1) I know from a warranty deed, dated in July of 1917, that my great grandfather had purchased Survey #166.

2) I don't know much about the other individuals mentioned in the article. There is an R.C. Elam Road in Fabens, Texas.