Antonio Baca ~ Will 1755

I, Antonio Baca, legitimate son of Manuel Baca and Maria Salazar, deceased, sick in bed of an illness....

I declare to have been married to Maria de Aragon, according to the rites of our Holy Mother Church, and during our matrimony we reared eight children:  Ana Maria Baca, deceased, who was married to Andres Montoya; and Maria Francisca married to Manuel de Armijo; Juana Baca to Francisco Montoya; Gregoria Baca, married to Mateo Roybal; Ines Baca married to Antonio Montoya; Rosa Baca married to Antonio Ortega; Pablo Baca married to Lorenza Juana Rivera; and Maria, deceased; leaving only six living, and I declare I have some land.

I declare to have a parcel of agricultural land in Santa Cruz de los Palacios, purchased in royal sale from Captain Andres Montoya, which I already have apportioned among my legitimate children.  My dwelling house, consisting of five rooms with its windows  and doors and said house and lands, I leave to my children that they may enjoy with God's blessing and my own.

Also a spade, a spit for roasting meat, a griddle, a frying pan, a set of curbed iron tools, a branding iron, a coal axe, a table and a bench.

Also five oxen, seven cows, seven calves, a bull, a steer and a blunderbuss.

I also declare to possess 23 steers for defraying the expenses of my funeral and wake.

And I order, that if God takes me from this life, my corpse be shrouded with the habit of the Order of St. Francis, and to be buried in the Church of the villa under the altar of St. Anthony and if possible, have a funeral mass with vigils.  Other masses I leave according to the will of my administrators.

With this I conclude the division of my estate, and name as my Testementary Administrators, don Mateo Roybal and Pablo Baca, to my entire satisfaction, and I revoke and annul any other testaments or codicils that I may have executed, and declare this to be the only legal and binding.  The witnesses were:  Andres Montoya, and Manuel Montoya, both pertaining to this jurisdiction, where this is executed and granted on this 6th day of May, year of 1755.  In testimony thereof; as I was about to take the pen to sign I could not; I requested Mateo Roybal to sign for me, at request of the grantor,

Mateo de Roybal.
Manuel  Baca
Mateo Roybal
Manuel Gallego, witness

This couple was married at Bernalillo, New Mexico in 1706.

References:  Spanish Archives of New Mexico, Series I, Frames 767-771
©Henrietta M. Christmas