Maverick also purchased all the property along the north wall of the Alamo and the east side to the convento from Mariano Romano (BCDR A2:470). In the deed from Romano is a clear statement of the position and construction of the north wall of the north courtyard in 1841: the property line ran down the east side of Alamo Plaza to the northwestern corner of the old granary, now the Long Barracks, and then "eastward...on and along with an old stone fence to the corner of an enclosure where said fence stops and turns southward--thence the line turns southward, with said old stone fence and as far as said fence extended, and down to where this lot terminated, close to the church. " This line was surveyed by François Giraud in 1849, and recorded in the City Survey Book, pages 11411; a copy of this plan is printed in Fox et al. (1976:19). The property line as it runs east from the north end of the Long Barracks is the same line which forms the northern boundary of the Alamo property along Houston Street today.

The description "old stone fence" reveals that in 1841, less than six years after the battle of the Alamo, the remains of the northern and eastern walls which formed part of the defenses of the north courtyard must have looked like the remains of any other fallen wall, visible only as low ridges of stone rubble and earth.

Fallen rubble was still visible in September 1846 when Edward Everett, a member of the expedition of General John E. Wool to Parras, drew his plan of the Alamo grounds (Colquitt 1913:114; Fox et al. 1976:16). Everett found sufficient traces of a wall along the north and east sides of the north courtyard to show them with parallel dotted lines in the same manner as he indicated the main walls of the Alamo quadrangle (Fox et al. 1976:Figure 4). C. W. Thomas, Quartermaster for the Wool expedition, decided to establish a U.S. Army Quartermaster Depot in the ruins of the Alamo after suitable repairs had been made. The U.S. Army had already placed a blacksmith shop here, and Thomas

...had several of the rooms cleaned out, and temporary roofs thrown over them and removed the saddlers and wheel-wrights from the city into them. Leaving shortly after with General Wool's column, I left instructions with Captain William Wall, to have my plans carried into effect and to remove the whole depot, as soon as the repair could be made [Young ca. 1970s: 18].

Captain J. H. Ralston assumed command of the U.S. Army Quartermaster Depot in January 1847, and began the job of converting the Alamo ruins into a storehouse.

On February 20, 1847, Ralston estimated the roofing and repair of the Long Barracks would Cóst $1,555.90 (Young ca. 1970s:22). By March 19, he stated he had "made some repairs" to the old convento buildings, and was also speculating on the possibility of repairing the church for additional storage space (Young ca. 1970s:24). On September 20 he reported, "by the end of the present month another part of the Alamo will be repaired for a Quarter master's office and for storage of the residue of the Quartermaster's Stores" (Young ca. 1970s:26). Apparently the repairing and roofing of the convento was completed by the end of 1847.

By mid-1848, according to an updated version of Edward Everett's map included in Ralston's final report of February 10, 1849 (Plan of the US Depot at the Alamo, San Antonio de Bexar, in final report of J. H. Ralston, copy on file at the DRT Library, the Alamo, San Antonio, Texas), the army had built a "horse shed" or stable along the east side of the old granary in the north courtyard. A picket fence had been built running east from the convento buildings to the acequia along the line where Everett showed a trace of a wall dividing the north and south courtyards. This was 20 ft south of the line of the present wall between the courtyards.

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