"Juan de Aguilar. August 17, 1818. Question of boundaries with the Pueblo of the Pecos. Before Don Facundo Melgares, Governor. Vicente Villanueva, Alcalde. Pueblo of Pecos; measurements made from the church and the location of the latter with respect to the end of the pueblo at that time (1818) occupied by the Indians. ...This is a petition of Juan de Aguilar [land owner in the Allejandro Valle land grant bordering the north side of the Pecos Pueblo grant] to the governor of New Mexico complaining that the alcalde of El Vado, Don Vincente Villanueva, had made certain measurements from the pueblo of Pecos in defiance of the accepted rules for such operations, in that he had begun them at the edge of the town, instead of at the cross in the cemetery, and with a cord one hundred varas in length instead of only fifty, which alleged errors had resulted in extending the boundaries of the league of the Indians so as to embrace land belonging to the petitioner, and also lands belonging to other citizens. The petitioner asks the governor to decide the two questions raised by him as to the correct manner of making the measurements. On August 19, 1818, Governor Melgares called upon the alcalde to report on the matter, which he did on the same day. He says that no injury had resulted to anyone from the use of the hundred vara cord, because he had dampened it and stretched it out by two stakes, to offset what shrinkage it may have suffered while it had been coiled; that he had presented it to the petitioner, his son and others, who had again stretched it until they broke it; that with this cord he had made the measurement, with which they were satisfied; that the statement that other lands than those of the petitioner were embraced in the league was false; that if he had used a shorter cord it would have been to the injury of the Indians, on account of the irregular and broken character of the ground; etc. etc. In regard to his beginning at the edge of the pueblo he states that he knew it was the custom (but not a fixed rule) to begin at the cross in the cemetery; that the reason for this was that in all the pueblos, except Pecos, the church was approximately in the center of the pueblo; that in addition to the pueblo of Pecos being long, the church was more than a hundred varas distant from one of its extremities, which extremity was opposite to the one then occupied by the Indians; that he had made two other measurements which were favorable to the citizens; etc. No action appears to have been taken on this report by the governor."