The William A. Philpott, Jr. Collection, in three manuscript boxes, consists primarily of a portion of the extensive materials collected by William A. Philpott, Jr. over a period of approximately 50 years. Other materials in the collection include personal letters to Mr. Philpott, materials relating to the Texas Bankers Association, three photographs, and two catalogs of Mr. Philpott’s collection (one catalog without addenda and the other with addenda). Most of the materials in this collection relate to Texas, with the bulk of the materials dated between 1835 and 1900. Many of the materials relate to land transactions and other legal matters. The oldest document in the collection is a 1633 letter by Nicolas Briot, who was at the time the chief engraver of the English mint under King Charles I and had earlier served in the same position under King Louis XIII of France. The most recent document is the copy of the collection catalog, with the last addendum dated 1973. The collection is arranged in seven series. The arrangement was determined by the archivists, as the collection did not have a consistent, developed organizational scheme when it was received by Special Collections. The first series is the William A. Philpott, Jr. Papers. It includes personal letters to Mr. Philpott, catalogs of his collection, two portraits of Mr. Philpott, and one photograph of two adults and a child (perhaps Mr. Philpott and his parents). Correspondents include Texas politician Maury Maverick, popular Detroit-based poet Edgar A. Guest, and Texas historian and businessman James T. DeShields. The second series is Texas Bankers Association Records. This series consists primarily of materials related to annual conventions of the Association, including the proceedings of the Association’s first convention held at Lampasas Springs, Texas, in 1885. Other conventions whose proceedings are included in this collection were held at El Paso in 1904 and Dallas in 1905 and 1911. Convention programs include the 1913 convention in Galveston, which includes the program for the first convention of the Texas Women’s Bankers Association. This series also includes notices and a poster relating to the Texas Bankers Association’s Dead Bank Robber reward program, under which the Association promised to pay cash rewards to citizens who killed bank robbers during the commission of holdups. The poster sets forth the rules as of January 1933 for payment of rewards. The third series comprises about one-fourth of the collection and is the James Morgan Papers. The bulk of the series includes business papers such as legal documentation (agreements, deeds, mortgages, promissory notes, bonds, powers of attorney), correspondence (both to and from Morgan), receipts, and account statements relating to Morgan’s varied mercantile and land interests. It contains employment agreements made by Morgan in New York in 1835 to bring workers to the town of New Washington, Texas, which Morgan was developing on behalf of New York investors who included Samuel Swartwout and Lorenzo de Zavala. Included is Morgan’s employment agreement with Emily D. West, who has become identified with the legend of the “Yellow Rose of Texas.” The business papers also contain materials related to Morgan’s development of the town of Swartwout on the Trinity River, and documents relating to land ventures in which Morgan engaged with Jacob De Cordova. The second portion covers the is Commander of Texas Forces at Galveston, which contains two documents relating to Morgan’s service as the commander of the Texian garrison on Galveston Island during the Texas Revolution. One of the documents is a letter written by Morgan to several prominent figures of the Texas Revolution (including General Thomas Jefferson Rusk, John A. Wharton, and Mirabeau B. Lamar) asking whether they believe Morgan engaged in any misconduct while he was in command at Galveston. The series also contains personal correspondence and contains two 1861 letters from John J. Johnston, Jr. to Morgan relating personal news. The final portion of the series contains legal documentation (land surveys, deeds, promissory notes, agreement), court records, correspondence, invoices, and receipts relating to the administration of the estate of James Morgan following his death in 1866. Much of the material relates to disputes between H.F. Gillette, one of the executors of Morgan’s estate, and some of Morgan’s heirs. One of those disputes led to a lawsuit that was decided in Gillette’s favor by the United States Supreme Court, Allen v. Gillette, 127 U.S. 589 (1888), and includes correspondence between Gillette and his attorneys relating to the attorneys’ fees charged to Gillette in connection with that lawsuit. The fourth series is Other Personal Papers and includes some personal papers, primarily correspondence, of the following: Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, Nicolas Briot, Robert Carlisle and John Menefee (a letter from Carlisle to Menefee), Nathaniel Hart Davis, John A. Dix, H.F. Gillette (materials unrelated to his capacity as executor of Morgan’s estate), James Hiner, Sam Houston (a reprint, apparently from microfilm, of an 1815 letter by Houston regarding the uncertainty of his plans following the conclusion of the War of 1812), Ithamar Hubbell (Revolutionary War pension certificate), Samuel Bell Maxey, Samuel McCulloch, Sr. and Samuel McCulloch, Jr. (a promissory note made less than two weeks after the fall of the Alamo), Henry E. Shelley, James Smith, Noah Smithwick and his daughter Nancy (Nanna) Smithwick Donaldson (includes what appear to be notes of dictated memoirs, drafts, sketches, a leather wallet, and an embroidered bookmark), John Townsend, and Nahor Biggs Yard (honorable discharge in 1839 from the Galveston Company of Volunteers). The fifth series is Legal and Business Records and is the largest in the collection. This series is arranged in five subseries. The first subseries is Austin County (Republic of Texas) Government Records and contains a bond signed by Sheriff McHenry Winburn upon taking office in 1839, as well as two 1839 reports from road commissioners. The second subseries is Business Records. This subseries includes letters from 1858-1878 to the Victoria, Texas, law firm of Glass & Callender and William S. Glass; an 1832 ledger showing sales by the San Felipe de Austin mercantile business of Huff & Veeder to an ayuntamiento (town council); an 1817 receipt from McKinne’s Commission Ware-House, Augusta (Georgia?), for seven bales of cotton; records (mortgages, letters, deeds, agreement, and receipt) relating to the Gonzales, Texas, law and banking firms of Miller & Sayers and their members from 1867-1905; land patents to, a deed from, and a letter from the Texan Emigration and Land Company of Louisville, Kentucky, in 1857-1858; and corporate documents of the Valley View Hospital and related entities, of Victoria, Texas, dated 1903 and 1905. The third subseries is Court Records. This subseries contains court records (bonds, a court order, a motion, and a writ) relating to lawsuits in courts of the Republic of Texas from 1838-1843. Early Texas settlers who appear in these records include Charles Chevallier, Horace Eggleston, Thomas Gay, George Huff, William Kuykendall, Noel Mixon, Richard Parmalee, Jesse Walling, and Nicholas Whitehead. The Court Records subseries also contains court records (administrator’s bond and oath, alias capias [essentially an arrest warrant], citation, court order, and documents relating to the probate of a will) relating to proceedings in courts of the state of Texas from 1859-1894, including an 1859 Administrator’s Bond and Oath by Alexis T. Rainey, who later was a Confederate regimental commander in the Civil War. The fourth subseries is Land Records. This subseries contains one 1836 receipt from the Ouachita, Louisiana, Land Office for a land payment from prominent Louisiana planter Jean Baptiste Prudhomme, Jr. The subseries also includes many records (Mexican grants, survey notes and maps, patents, deeds, mortgages, releases, bonds, indentures, correspondence, promissory notes, contracts, receipts, certificates, and a notice of sale) relating to land in Texas and dated from 1835-1944, with the bulk dated 1835-1900. These documents span the eras of Texas as part of the state of Coahuila y Texas, Republic of Mexico; the Republic of Texas; and the state of Texas. The documents relating to Texas land are arranged by the present-day counties where the land is located. More than 50 of the documents in this subseries relate to land in Mr. Philpott’s native Montague County (including a 1926 deed to longtime Fort Worth Star-Telegram publisher and philanthropist Amon G. Carter). Other present-day Texas counties represented in this subseries are Anderson, Bexar, Calhoun, Clay, Cooke, DeWitt, Gonzales, Gregg, Hardin, Harrison, Henderson, Hopkins, Houston, Jack, Lamar, Limestone, Robertson, Tyler, Victoria, Washington, Wharton, and Wise. This subseries contains documents relating to several land grants by George (Jorge) Antonio Nixon, who was land commissioner for the Joseph Vehlein, Lorenzo de Zavala, and David G. Burnet empresario grants, as well as several land patents signed by Texas governors, including H.R. Runnels, E.M. Pease, and Coke R. Stevenson. Other prominent Texans reflected in these land transactions include Haden Edwards, H.H. Edwards, George Littlefield, Charles S. Taylor, and George Washington Smyth. The fifth subseries of the Legal and Business Records series is Republic of Texas Public Debt. This subseries contains an 1839 stock certificate in the Consolidated Fund of Texas and a 100-pounds-sterling bond issued by the Republic of Texas in 1839 as part of a $5 million bond issue approved by the Congress of the Republic of Texas in 1838. The sixth series is Maps, Sketches, and Pamphlets. This series includes an 1857 map of Texas and part of New Mexico, three booklets (The Valley of Alvardo, an 1847 poem; an 1856 speech by U.S. Representative Lemuel D. Evans of Texas; an 1889 promotional booklet about Lampasas Springs, Texas; and an 1890 city guide to Galveston, Texas), letters by Lenoir Hunt and his sister-in-law, Adele Breed (granddaughter of Civil War-era Texas Governor Francis Lubbock), relating to books, including a partial manuscript of Hunt’s 1938 history of Texas; two quarterly newsletters (1947 and 1953) of the Book Club of California; an undated color drawing of General Winfield Scott; and an undated print of a sketch of Military Plaza in San Antonio. The seventh series is Ephemera. It contains an 1832 letter from a person named W.W. Pace to an unidentified recipient; a facsimile of William B. Travis’ February 24, 1836, letter from the Alamo (printed on paper stock from the Dallas Historical Society); a facsimile of an 1850 dinner menu from the St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco; several bank checks from the 1870s and 1907; two “Tarry Checks” issued by a warehouse in Wichita Falls, Texas, during the bank moratorium in March 1933; several cards apparently allowing admittance to lectures or courses at the University of Louisiana Medical Department during 1851-1857; a facsimile of an 1888 poster advertising excursions from Austin to Galveston on the Houston & Texas Central Railway; a 1908 membership certificate in the Brotherhood of American Yeomen; and a poster advertising the 1938 sale of the assets of the Texas Centennial Central Exposition in Dallas. The William A. Philpott, Jr. Collection contains a wealth of information about early Texas and Texans. The many land-related documents in the collection reveal the variety and complexity of land transactions in which Texans engaged, particularly in the nineteenth century. These documents also provide substantial information about historical land values, both rural and urban, in Texas. The court documents provide insights into the operations of the Texas court system, particularly during the years of the Republic, and types of civil cases decided in that court system. The James Morgan Papers reveal the varied interests of an active businessman and land speculator and reflect the types of transactions that would occur during the process of developing new settlements in early Texas, as well as some of the problems encountered by developers of such settlements. Oversize material can be found in box OS497.
Finding aid available here. Materials provided by Special Collections and Archives at the University of Texas at Arlington.
