1 page, visible 14 x 11 1/2 in., toned, brown spotting, a few spots of lightening, matted and framed to 18 1/2 x 16 1/8 in., not examined out of frame.

A partly printed land grant issued to Samuel Messick of the Texas Immigration and Land Company 320 acres in Montague County. Signed mere days before a Texas political convention voted to secede on 1 February. Houston, however, was an anti-secessionist and declared Texas an independent republic and refused to join the Confederacy. After he personally refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy, the legislature declared his governorship vacant. Texas joined the Confederacy on 2 March 1861 and Houston's successor was sworn in on the 18th.