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Show SPANISH AND MEXICAN LAND GRANTS 473 Henry county, Missouri. He served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. After the war he became a resident of St. Louis, where he first became identified with the attempt to defraud the government, having there come into the possession of certain papers, as he claimed, purporting to be a grant made by the king of Spain to Don Miguel de Peralta de la Cordoba, made in the year 1748, conferring title to a tract of land of about 1,300,000 acres. Prior to the establishment of the court of private land claims, Reavis enlisted the assistance of many persons of wealth and influence in the promotion of his alleged claim. In all of his efforts before the land offices, the surveyor-general of Arizona, and at Washington before congress, he failed. Shortly after the organization of the court at Santa Fé he filed his claim, not the original claim which he had been promoting for many years, but an entirely new one in which he alleged that his wife, Dofia Sofia Loreto Micaela de Peralta Reavis, neé Maso, y : f a | * e Silva de Peralta de la Cordoba, was the great-granddaughter of Don Miguel Nemecio Silva de Peralta de la Cordoba y Garcia de Carrillo de la Falces, a Spanish gentleman of noble birth and distinction, holding under the royal authority of Spain the titles of grandee of Spain, Sir Knight of the Redlands, Baron of Arizonaca, gentleman of the king’s chamber with privileged entrance, captain of dragoons, aide-de-camp and ensign of the royal house, Sir Knight of the military orders of the Golden Fleece of St. Mary of Montesa, and of the royal and distinguished orders of Carlos III, and of the insignia and fellowship of the royal college of Our Lady of Guadalupe — and other titles too numerous to mention. His petition set forth that Don Miguel, being in the confidence of the king of Spain, Philip V, in the year 1742, was made a royal Inspector and business agent of the city of Cadiz, and as Such was sent to the interior provinces of the viceroya lty of New Spain, with secret instructions for the investigation of cerSpecial mention being Mr. Levi A. Hughes, of Santa Fé, N. Mex., employed on the Peralta Reavis claim. Mr. Hughes’ services in that connection in California were most excellently performed and proved of inestimable value In defeating the claim and in securing the conviction of Peralta Reavis.’’ — Other experts, translators and employes mentioned by Mr. Reynolds in his cjport are Messrs. Sherrard Coleman, Clayton Page B. Otero, Clarence Key, Epifanio Vigil, L. F. Parker, G.Jr., Coleman, William J. McPherson, €rnon Beggs, and Francisco Delgado. data for the report made by Mr. Reynolds. The last named compiled all of the |