Ever since, the legislature of the territory has been, in fact, utterly neglectful of its public documents. Each and every reminder in the shape of a petition has been disregarded, and only Governor L. Wallace has at last succeeded in having them overhauled. Hon. W. G. Ritch effected their removal to a suitable place, and it is to the acts of these gentlemen, and to the labor of love of Mr. Ellison, that we owe the preservation of what now remains. What little documentary evidence has, therefore, been left at my disposal, contains, as might be supposed, meagre information concerning the pueblo of Pecos. The older church annals I have not been able to find, for those at the Plaza de Pecos date back only to 1862. Whither they have gone I am unable to tell, except that they are not at Santa Fé. About the year 1628, through the action of Fray Francisco de Apodaca,[160] then Commissary-General of the Franciscan order in Mexico, religious life in this territory obtained a new impulse. Until then the work performed had been almost exclusively missionary work; the priests had (and still have) enormous districts to visit. Thus: that of the first priest of Pecos embraced from N. to S. a country of over 60 miles long, and 30 to 50 wide from E. to W. However, after Fray Gerónimo de Zarate Salmeron had addressed to his superior at Mexico his remarkable report in the year 1626,[161] a new life began. It is therefore after 1629 that the large church at Pecos was erected, but I am as yet unable to give the exact dates. This church and the "convent" were both built by Indians, whom the fathers had taught to square timbers, to ornament them with simple friezes and scroll-work, and to make adobe in the manner now practised, namely, mixing straw with the clay and moulding it in boxes. They were also taught to grow wheat and oats, and their flocks increased. In addition to being a horticultural people they became herders, and the pueblo was prosperous. Its church was renowned as the finest in New Mexico.[162] Whereas Santa Fé, in 1667, had but 250 inhabitants,[163] Pecos, as late as 1680, sheltered 2,000 Indians.[164]