History
One of them was the one referring to the Province of Alicante, about “General Geography of the Kingdom of Valencia”, edited by D. Feo Carreras Candy whose volume is written by Figueras Pacheco. It is not dated, but it is deduced that it went on sale around 1915.
I found there interesting data so that they do not pass into oblivion and the present Board of Festivities of Cuatretondeta has given me the opportunity to put them in knowledge of the locals.
When I looked through it I noticed, with a certain curiosity, that certain towns (Quatretondeta, Facheca, Famorca, etc.) did not belong to the Judicial District of Cocentaina, but to Callosa d’En Sarrià. We must bear in mind that the data correspond to the years before 1915, when exactly one hundred years are now being fulfilled.
Another of the books that tell the story of each town in Alicante, is that of D. Pascual Orozco Sánchez, who wrote this little work without much pretension but that has given us the opportunity to know data that is not found in other works of more category.
The book was dedicated for reading in the classrooms of the Schools of Primary Instruction. It informs us about our mountains, rivers, landscapes, municipal shields, production of the field, its orchards, its agricultural crops, inhabitants and even the size of the enormous hens of Gorga. There is also some succinct reference to the history of each town and its Famous Sons. The book is dated in the printing year of Antonio Reus.
In both volumes there are references to the population of Quatretondeta.
It should be noted that every town received a questionnaire that had to be completed and so completed by the various town halls. In the section referring to “if they used any shield” as soon as the answer was negative, they said “It has the National Coat of Arms”, so the shield appears as the one used in Quatretondeta.
There are certain questionnaires that promoted the “Friends of the Country Societies”, as a contest won by the person who best described their population and the interesting data that they contributed. I know three questionnaires from different years, referring to Alcoy (1753, 1808 and 1864) being awarded the one of the year 1808, which was awarded to a Alcoyano the amount of 1,000 reales de vellón (which was a fortune). Actually, it was an undercover contest to provide data that were transmitted to the Ministry of Development (Treasury), to distribute taxes among those described in the various sections. There may be data related to this population.
We went to transcribe in facsimile the data referring to Quatretondeta of the two books previously described, to satisfy the kind reader.
Rafael Abad Segura
Alcoyano
