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

56115

Portland, Texas - Capital Stock Certificate

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Paper Start Price:575.00 USD Estimated At:1,000.00 - 1,500.00 USD
Portland, Texas - Capital Stock Certificate
<B>Capital stock certificate for $100 Portland, Texas</B></I> City of Portland, Matagorda County, Republic of Texas, $100 No. [11], April 29, 1841. J. Lowe (engraver). Signed by Nicholas Clopper. <BR><BR>The certificate reads (italics denotes handwritten entries) "$<I>100.00</B></I> No. <I>11</B></I> Capital Stock Two Thousand Acres of Land & City Lots. City of Portland Matagorda Co.. Republic of Texas. This Certificate for <I>one hundred</B></I> Dollars will be received at par in payment for Lots in the above named City. City of Portland 29 April 1841 <I>E. E. Este</B></I> Sec [and] <I>Nicholas Clopper</B></I> Agnt. [Symbolical illustrations]"<BR><BR>This certificate, which is engraved and not printed, is the earliest example known of engraving done in Texas. The blank for the date on the Streeter certificate is filled out, "29 April." E.E. Este signs the certificate as Secretary, and Nicholas Clopper as Agent. This certificate represents an interesting scheme promoted by Nicholas Clopper of Cincinnati, his son Joseph C. Clopper, and the latter's wife's brother, Edward Este, for establishing a new town on the Colorado River at the head of the raft. The plan was to connect the new town by a railroad with tidewater on Wilson's Creek, about three miles to the south, "and thence by steam-boats or other craft to Port Austin and Palacios." These two towns were on Matagorda Bay, south of the mouth of the Colorado. Nicholas Clopper acquired lands in Texas in the 1820s, and in 1827 took his three sons to Texas on a visit. The journal of one of the sons, Joseph Chambers Clopper, kept on that visit is given in Vol. XIII, Quarterly, Texas State Historical Association, p. 44-80, July, 1909, and "The Clopper Correspondence, 1834-1838," in Vol. XIII, p. 128-144, October, 1909. Another sister of Edward Este was Mrs. David G. Burnet. There is a short sketch of Este in the <I>Writings of Sam Houston</B></I>, Vol. I, p. 394. In 1950 Edward Nicholas Clopper, one of the descendants of the Cloppers referred to above, published at Cincinnati a most interesting account of the Cloppers who visited Texas and of other members of his family in <I>An American Family, Its Ups and Downs through Eight Generations in New Amsterdam...and Texas from 1650 to 1880.</B></I><BR><BR>Clopper was an early Texas settler who moved to Stephen F. Austin's colony from Ohio. He later organized the Texas Trading Association in 1827 to conduct trade over Buffalo Bayou, an untapped trade route between the Brazos area and the Gulf of Mexico. In 1826 he purchased the peninsula between Galveston and San Jacinto bays, now known as Morgan's Point. As a matter of fact, the sand bar blocking the entrance to San Jacinto Bay still bears his name. In 1835, Clopper presided over a meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio, which opened a subscription to purchase two cannons, the famous Twin Sisters, for the Texas revolutionaries. The stock certificate here shows two vertical wrinkles in the middle third and the bottom right corner is folded. Otherwise, the piece is in extra fine condition. <I>From the collection of Darrel Brown.</B></I><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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