LOVELL, BENJAMIN DRAKE (?-?). Benjamin Drake Lovell, a United States citizen and merchant living in Monterrey, Nuevo León, was a partner with John G. Purnell in an empresario contract made with the state of Coahuila and Texas on October 22, 1825. They were to settle 200 families in South Texas in an area roughly north and west of the Nueces River and south of the Medina River and the Old San Antonio Road. Lovell apparently made an unsuccessful trip to New York to raise funds for the enterprise, and after Purnell's death, secured permission to transfer the grant to John McMullen and James McGloin.qqv
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mary Virginia Henderson, "Minor Empresario Contracts for the Colonization of Texas, 1825-1834," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 31, 32 (April, July 1928).
