Mora, New Mexico

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Mora, New Mexico
census-designated place
USA New Mexico location map.svg
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Mora
Location within the state of New Mexico
Coordinates: 35°58′27″N105°19′48″W / 35.97417°N 105.33000°W / 35.97417; -105.33000 [1]
Country United States
State New Mexico
County Mora County
Area
[2]
 • Total8.04 sq mi (20.81 km2)
 • Land8.04 sq mi (20.81 km2)
 • Water0.00 sq mi (0.00 km2)
Elevation
[1]
7,172 ft (2,186 m)
Population
 (2020) [3]
 • Total547
 • Density68.08/sq mi (26.29/km2)
Time zone UTC-7 (MST)
 • Summer (DST) UTC-6 (MDT)
ZIP Code
87732
Area code 575
FIPS code 35-50090 [1]
GNIS feature ID0915867 [1]
Website www.countyofmora.com

Mora or Santa Gertrudis de lo de Mora is a census-designated place in, and the county seat of, Mora County, New Mexico. It is located about halfway between Las Vegas and Taos on Highway 518, at an altitude of 7,180 feet. The Republic of Texas performed a semi-official raid on Mora in 1843. Two short battles of the Mexican–American War were fought in Mora in 1847, where U.S. troops eventually defeated the Hispano and Puebloan militia, effectively ending the Taos Revolt in the Mora Valley. The latter battle destroyed most of the community, necessitating its re-establishment.

Contents

Mora includes three plazas and four settlements: Mora proper, Cleveland (originally named San Antonio), Chacon, and Holman (without a plaza, and originally named Agua Negra) lying between Chacon and Cleveland. In the mid-19th century, there were two settlements, Upper and Lower Mora.

Demographics

Historical population
CensusPop.Note%±
2020 547—
U.S. Decennial Census [4] [3]

History

David F. Cargo Library in Mora Mora New Mexico Public Library.jpg
David F. Cargo Library in Mora
Court House, Mora County, New Mexico Mora County New Mexico Court House.jpg
Court House, Mora County, New Mexico

Early settlement of the area

Spanish settlers had sporadically occupied what is now known as the Mora Valley since the late 18th century. The surviving written history of the settlement of Mora dates to 1818, when a group of settlers petitioned to build a church in what was then named Lo de Mora;, [5] or in long form Santa Gertrudis de lo de Mora; they had come from San Juan de los Caballeros [6] (originally Caypa Pueblo, and today named Ohkay Owingeh).

However, Mora was formally founded as a Hispanic farming community – after Mexican independence from Spain – upon a land grant issued September 28, 1835, by Centralist Republic of Mexico Governor of Nuevo Mexico Albino Pérez, [7] It provided title to a strip of Mora Valley land to each of dozens of families willing to settle there. [7] [8] [6] Despite fanciful stories about subsistence on berries (mora means 'mulberry' in Spanish), the valley, the river, the town, and eventually the county appear to have taken their name from the family name Mora, borne by several of the settlers. [7] [6] While mulberry trees are found in the area, [6] they were likely introduced by Spanish or later settlers.

The whole eastern half of New Mexico was claimed by the breakaway Republic of Texas in 1836, but was not occupied by American troops until the arrival of Stephen W. Kearny and his Army of the West in 1846.

The town

The settlement, of Hispanos from elsewhere in New Mexico and local Puebloans, was well established by 1843, when there was a raid on the town by freebooters from the Republic of Texas under Colonel Charles A. Warfield [5] claiming that the people in Mora had purchased stolen Texan cattle from the Comanche. The Texans killed five men and took eighteen women and children captive, as well as 75 horses. The people of the Mora Valley convened a posse, overtook the Texans, and sent them back to Texas on foot. [8]

Mora was subject to occupying United States control under the U.S. provisional government of New Mexico beginning in 1846, during the Mexican–American War. The town, then consisting of the two settlements of Upper and Lower Mora, [9] (sometimes misspelled "Moro" in American documents of the era) was the site of two armed conflicts between United States Army troops and a militia of Hispano and Puebloan Mexican-nationalists, in the Taos Revolt, a guerrilla campaign of the war. In the First Battle of Mora, on January 24, 1847, a group of over 150 New Mexican resistance fighters repelled an expedition of 80 US Army troops, and killed their commander, Captain Israel R. Hendley, and several others. On February 1, Capt. Jesse I. Morin and his 200 men, with artillery, destroyed the village and surrounding ranches and crops, in retaliation. This sent surviving combatant and civilian residents of Mora and its environs fleeing into and over the mountains to other settlements. [10] The town was rebuilt some time later, after crops could be re-established. This destruction has made historical and genealogical research on Mora difficult beyond 1848, because most early records went up in flames with the buildings.

The entire war ended February 3, 1848, with all of New Mexico then under official US control, as the Mexican Cession of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo relinquished all claims by Mexico to lands north of the Rio Grande. The New Mexico Territory was formalized by the Compromise of 1850. The US Army controversially built Fort Union in 1851 on private Mora Grant land in the valley, along the Santa Fe Trail; while this sparked decades of unresolved legal actions, local farmers sold crops to the fort, which was a new and reliable source of income to the community, and the population swelled. Ceran St. Vrain, an American veteran of the Taos Revolt (originally from St. Louis in what was then the French Upper Louisiana Territory), settled in Mora in 1853; he built a grist mill, and became a major supplier of flour, grain, and fodder to the fort. The ruins of St. Vrain's mill still sit one block north of Mora's main street. [8]

The county of Mora was established in the territory on February 1, 1860. [6] Mora continued to grow as an agricultural community; by the late 19th century, there were five mills operating in Mora, though Fort Union, after being rebuilt for a second time, was finally closed in 1891. The population peaked around 1920, declined markedly for several decades, then stabilized in the 1970s. It remains about 80% hispanic. (See Mora County, New Mexico § Demographics for details.)

Notable people

Cultural references

The settlement is mentioned in Willa Cather's 1927 historical novel Death Comes for the Archbishop (Book Two, Chapter 2), about the establishment of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe.[ citation needed ]

Frank Waters's 1941 novel, People of the Valley takes place high in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains where an isolated Spanish-speaking community (based on Mora) confront a threatening world of change.[ citation needed ]

Mora was also in Louis L'Amour's 1960 Western novel The Daybreakers, in which the character Orrin Sackett is the fictional marshal of Mora.[ citation needed ]

Related Research Articles

Taos or TAOS may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mora County, New Mexico</span> County in New Mexico, United States

Mora County is a county in the U.S. state of New Mexico. As of the 2020 census, the population was 4,189. Its county seat is the census-designated place (CDP) Mora. The county has another CDP, Watrous, a village, Wagon Mound, and 12 smaller unincorporated settlements. Mora became a formal county in the US, in what was then the New Mexico Territory, on February 1, 1860. Ecclesiastically, the county is within the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Santa Fe. County population peaked at approximately 14,000 circa 1920, declining to about 4,000 to 5,000 since the 1970s; the 2018 estimate was 4,506.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Santa Cruz, New Mexico</span> CDP in New Mexico, United States

Santa Cruz, historically known as Santa Cruz de la Cañada, is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, United States. It is part of the Santa Fe, New Mexico Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 423 at the 2000 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fort Union National Monument</span> National monument in the United States

Fort Union National Monument is a unit of the National Park Service of the United States, and is located north of Watrous in Mora County, New Mexico. The national monument was founded on June 28, 1954.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Charles Bent</span> American politician (1799–1847)

Charles Bent was an American businessman and politician who served as the first civilian United States governor of the New Mexico Territory, newly invaded and occupied by the United States during the Mexican-American War by the Military Governor, Stephen Watts Kearny, in September 1846.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ceran St. Vrain</span> French–American fur trader (1802–1870)

Ceran St. Vrain, born Ceran de Hault de Lassus de Saint-Vrain, was the son of a French aristocrat who emigrated to the Spanish Louisiana in the late 18th century; his mother was from St. Louis, where he was born. To gain the ability to trade, in 1831 he became a naturalized Mexican citizen in what is now the state of New Mexico. He formed a partnership with American traders William, George and Charles Bent; together they established the trading post of Bent's Fort. It was the only privately held fort in the West.

The First Battle of Mora was part of the Taos Revolt of the Mexican–American War, between United States Army troops under Captain Israel R. Hendley, versus a militia of Hispanos and Puebloan allies in US-occupied northern New Mexico. The short skirmish took place on January 24, 1847, in and around the village of Mora, resulting in a US Army defeat and the death of Hendley and several of his men.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Taos Revolt</span> Insurrection in New Mexico Territory in 1847

The Taos Revolt was a popular insurrection in January 1847 by Hispano and Pueblo allies against the United States' occupation of present-day northern New Mexico during the Mexican–American War. Provisional governor Charles Bent and several other Americans were killed by the rebels. In two short campaigns, United States troops and militia crushed the rebellion of the Hispano and Pueblo people. The New Mexicans, seeking better representation, regrouped and fought three more engagements, but after being defeated, they abandoned open warfare. Hatred of New Mexicans for the occupying American army combined with the oft-exercised rebelliousness of Taos residents against authority imposed on them from elsewhere were causes of the revolt. In the aftermath of the revolt the Americans executed at least 28 rebels. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 guaranteed the property rights of New Mexico's Hispanic and American Indian residents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Manuel Antonio Chaves</span> New Mexican soldier

Manuel Antonio Chaves or Chávez, known as El Leoncito, was a soldier in the Mexican Army and then became a rancher who lived in New Mexico. His life was full of incident, and his courage and marksmanship became literally legendary in his own time. In documented history, as an American soldier he helped win the American Civil War Battle of Glorieta Pass and was in command during an important fight in the Navajo Wars. As a Mexican soldier he probably negotiated the surrender of a large part of the Texan Santa Fe Expedition.

The Río Arriba Rebellion, also known as the Chimayó Rebellion, was an 1837 Pueblo-Hispano popular revolt in New Mexico which succeeded in briefly placing José María González and Pablo Montoya as governor of Mexico's Santa Fe de Nuevo México territory. González and Montoya were both Taos Pueblo Indians and led the independent Junta Popular or Cantón, which was the most ethnically inclusive government in the history of New Mexico. They remain the only Pueblo governors of New Mexico to this day.

Thomas Tate Tobin was an American adventurer, tracker, trapper, mountain man, guide, US Army scout, and occasional bounty hunter. Tobin explored much of southern Colorado, including the Pueblo area. He associated with men such as Kit Carson, "Uncle Dick" Wootton, Ceran St. Vrain, Charley Bent, John C. Fremont, "Wild Bill" Hickok, William F. Cody, and the Shoup brothers. Tobin was one of only two men to escape alive from the siege of Turley's Mill and Distillery during the Taos Revolt. In later years he was sent by the Army to track down and kill the notorious Felipe Espinosa and his nephew; Tobin returned to Ft. Garland with their heads in a sack.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jesus Gil Abreu</span> New Mexico rancher and pioneer

Jesus Gil Abreu was an American rancher and pioneer who owned a New Mexico ranch that now comprises Philmont Scout Ranch.

Guadalupe Miranda was a Mexican public official who was mayor of Ciudad Juárez and recipient of the 1,700,000-acre (6,900 km2) Beaubien-Miranda Land Grant.

The Second Battle of Mora was a February 1, 1847, military engagement during the Taos Revolt of the Mexican–American War in and around the village of Mora in US-occupied northern New Mexico. Seeking revenge for United States Army's January 24 defeat at the hands of a Mexican-national militia of Hispanos and their Puebloan allies at First Battle of Mora, Capt. Jesse I. Morin and his men destroyed the village the next week, with the insurgents fleeing into the mountains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Early history of the Arkansas Valley in Colorado</span> 17th to 19th century history of the valley

The early history of the Arkansas Valley in Colorado began in the 1600s and to the early 1800s when explorers, hunters, trappers, and traders of European descent came to the region. Prior to that, Colorado was home to prehistoric people, including Paleo-Indians, Ancestral Puebloans, and Late prehistoric Native Americans.

Lewis Hector Garrard was an American travel writer who wrote an enduring book, Wah-to-yah and the Taos Trail, about his visit to the southwestern United States in 1846-1847.

John Fitzgerald was an American soldier, born in Cook County, Illinois in about 1817. He fought at the Siege of Pueblo de Taos, February 3–5, 1847, during the Taos Revolt. Following that fight, on February 8, he assassinated "Tomascito" Romero, one of the leaders of the revolt.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hispanos of New Mexico</span> Ethnic group native to New Mexico

The Hispanos of New Mexico, also known as Neomexicanos or Nuevomexicanos, are Hispanic residents originating in the historical region of Santa Fe de Nuevo México, today the US state of New Mexico, southern Colorado, and other parts of the Southwestern United States including Arizona, Nevada, Texas, and Utah. They are descended from Oasisamerica groups and the settlers of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, the First Mexican Empire and Republic, the Centralist Republic of Mexico, and the New Mexico Territory.

Bent, St. Vrain & Company was a fur trading and Indian trading business active from 1830 to 1849, in the Republic of Mexico, the Republic of Texas, and in the unorganized territory of the United States.

The Turley Mill and Distillery Site is a historic site on the Rio Hondo about 11 miles (18 km) north of Taos, New Mexico. It was a mill and distillery which served as the headquarters of Simeon Turley's commercial and manufacturing empire. Simeon Turley (1809–1847) and his brothers Stephen Turley (1786–1851) and Jesse B. Turley (1801–1861) transported goods from Franklin, Missouri to Taos via wagon train on the Santa Fe Trail. About 1827–1829 Simeon settled in Arroyo Hondo and established the mill and distillery as a popular trading post and "watering hole." Simeon was murdered in the Taos Revolt of January 1847 and the mill and distillery site was all but destroyed. Simeon Turley is buried in the Kit Carson Memorial Cemetery in Taos. The mill and distillery site was listed on the State of New Mexico Register of Cultural Properties in 1969 and on the National Register of Historic Places in 1978.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) details for Mora, New Mexico; United States Geological Survey (USGS); November 13, 1980.
  2. ↑ "ArcGIS REST Services Directory". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved October 12, 2022.
  3. 1 2 "Census Population API". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved October 12, 2022.
  4. ↑ "Census of Population and Housing". Census.gov. Retrieved June 4, 2016.
  5. 1 2 Bullock, Alice (1981). "Lo de Mora". Mountain Villages (2nd ed.). Santa Fe, New Mexico: Sunstone Press. pp.  53–58. ISBN   0-913270-13-X.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 "Locating Catholic Church Records in Mora County". New Mexico Genealogical Society. 2008. Archived from the original on April 26, 2015. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
  7. 1 2 3 Pearce, T. M. (1965). "Mora". New Mexico Place Names: A Geographical Dictionary . Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. p.  104. OCLC   420847.
  8. 1 2 3 Noble, David Grant (1994). "Mora". Pueblos, Villages, Forts & Trails: A Guide to New Mexico's Past. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press. pp. 175–179. ISBN   0-8263-1514-3.
  9. ↑ McNierney, Michael (1980). Taos 1847, the Revolt in Contemporary Accounts. Boulder, Colorado: Johnson Books. p. 35. ISBN   978-0-933472-07-5.
  10. ↑ Goodrich, James W. (1972). "Revolt at Mora, 1847". New Mexico Historical Review. 47 (1): 49–60.
  11. ↑ "Floyd Esquibel's Biography". VoteSmart.org. Philipsburg, Montana: Project Vote Smart. 2016. Archived from the original on March 25, 2016. Retrieved January 25, 2018.
  12. ↑ "Ledoux, NM - Ledoux, New Mexico Map & Directions - MapQuest".
  13. ↑ "Explore".

Further reading

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