AGREEING TO PAY FOR A LOT IN THE CITY OF AUSTIN, REPUBLIC OF TEXAS, IN A PARTLY PRINTED DOCUMENT, DATED JANUARY 6, 1842, AND SIGNED BY JAMES WEBB, ATTORNEY FOR DAVID G. BURNET
NP [Austin, TX?]: [1842]. Single sheet, 15 x 20 cm. Partly printed, completed in manuscript. Burnet's attorney James Webb signs this promissory note for his client, who agreed to pay $12.50, the fourth installment on the purchase of out lot No. 45, Division D, in the city of Austin, originally purchased by Burnet at a sale on July 6, 1840, in accordance with an Act of Congress "For the Relief of the Purchasers of Lots in the City of Austin, and the Tract adjoining," which had been approved Jan. 12, 1841. Docketed on verso: "H.E. Burnet, 4th instalment, $12.50." Old horizontal fold. A very good copy. Item #67117
The settlement of Waterloo, originally established at a bend in the Colorado River was selected as the capital of the Republic of Texas in 1838 at the urging of Mirabeau Lamar, the second president of the Republic of Texas. Renamed Austin, the city was incorporated in 1839, and the first lots were sold that year. Construction of government buildings began promptly. David G. Burnet served as Lamar's Vice President, and James Webb was his attorney general.
Sam Houston considered the area too remote and opposed Lamar's selection of the site for a capital. Houston, the first elected president of the Republic, again became President in December 1841. After the invasion of Texas by Mexico in March 1842, a scant two months after this document was signed, Houston moved the capital to the city of Houston. It was not moved back to Austin until 1845.
Burnet (1788-1870) had been elected as President of the interim government of Texas at the March Convention of 1836, before the establishment of the Republic. His eight months of service preceded both Houston and Lamar. He engaged in experimental farming on his property in San Jacinto, and after the annexation of Texas by the United States, he became its first Secretary of State.
James Webb (1792-1856) moved to Houston, Texas in 1838. Shortly thereafter he moved to Austin, becoming a confidante of Mirabeau Lamar who appointed him secretary of the treasury, secretary of state, and finally attorney general during the time he served as President of the Republic. With Texas statehood, Webb became U.S. district judge for Texas. He and Thomas Duval produced the first three volumes of the Texas Reports, for the Texas Supreme Court. He later served as Secretary of State under the third governor Peter H. Bell. [see the brief biographies for Burnet and Webb in the Handbook of Texas (Austin: 1986)]
No listings on OCLC, not in Streeter's Texas.
Price: $1,500.00