LOT Old Heritage Auctions  /  2007 December Signature Texana Auction #661  / 

56114

Blank stock certificate for Mercer Colony; Texas

Currency:USD Category:Coins & Paper Money Start Price:470.00 USD Estimated At:850.00 - 1,250.00 USD
Blank stock certificate for Mercer Colony; Texas
<B>(Texas Association)</B></I> <B>A Blank Stock Certificate for the Mercer Colony.</B></I> 1 page 11" x 6.75", [no place, no date]. Lithographed stock certificate commencing: <I>"Texas Association 8,000 Square Miles on the Trinity River..." </B></I>At top is a Texas star, at the bottom a Native American and a buffalo, ornate scrollwork on either side, the whole surrounded by decorative border. Lithographed by Hart, Mapother & Co. of Louisville, Kentucky. An unrecorded, and uncompleted, stock certificate for the Texas Association, otherwise known as the Mercer Colony, located roughly between the Brazos and Sabine rivers. The Texas Association was formed in early 1844 by Charles Fenton Mercer, a former agent for the Peters' Colony, which had obtained a large impresario grant to settle North Texas. Following a controversy between British and American stockholders in which the latter seized control of the project and reorganized it as the Texas Emigration and Land Company, Mercer sold his interest in the enterprise to Louisville-based investors. He then obtained a new and separate contract from the Republic of Texas. This agreement, made by President Sam Houston on January 29, 1844, granted Mercer and the stockholders of the Texas Association eight thousand square miles on the Trinity River. In a colonization prospectus which he issued in September 1844 under the title of Texas Colonization (see Streeter 1520), Mercer offered, on payment of a surveying fee of eight dollars, up to half a section of land for every family settling on the grant before March 20, 1845. In order to finance his contract with Texas, Mercer "divided his whole interest the said tract of land...into one-hundred shares" (<I>Texas Colonization</B></I>).<BR><BR>Despite Mercer spending more than $15,000 on his project, by September 1847 plans had not progressed smoothly: "The work of colonization was impeded by the fact that various Texas politicians, land speculators, and squatters, all eager to supplant the impresario system, questioned the legality of the renewal of the impresario system. Squatters moved into the Mercer survey and denied the claims of settlers who held Mercer colony certificates" (Handbook of Texas). Faced with mounting losses in 1852, Mercer assigned his interests in the colony to a group of Louisville investors in exchange for an annuity of $2,000. Under the leadership of George Hancock, who had become chief agent, the Association was reorganized. In September 1858 the new secretary, Claudius Duval, called in Mercer's original one hundred certificates and issued new shares to sell for one hundred dollars each. The present certificate is from this issue of 1858. Left margin slightly irregular, a hint of toning at margins, else quite clean and crisp, very fine condition. Another excellent piece worthy of the most sophisticated Texas collection. <I>From the collection of Darrel Brown.</B></I><BR><BR><B>Reference:</B></I> A rare Texas imprint, not in Streeter, not in OCLC. <BR><BR><b>Shipping:</b> Flat Material, Small (<a target="_blank" href="http://www.heritageauctions.com/common/shipping.php">view shipping information</a>)
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