ENGRAVED INVITATION ADDRESSED TO JOHN BIRDSALL, ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS, TO ATTEND A BALL IN THE REPRESENTATIVE HALL "ON THE 25TH INST."
[Houston? 1837 or 1838]. 7" x 9" satiny coated paper sheet folded vertically, printed on first page only [completed in neat ink manuscript]. Handwritten address, "To The Attorney General," neatly penned on the last page. Old folds, light wear. Near Fine.
This rarity dates to the second year of the Republic of Texas. In August 1837 Governor Houston appointed Birdsall Attorney General. He served as such during 1837 and 1838. "From this time until the close of Houston's first administration these two officials worked harmoniously together" [Looscan, Life and Service of John Birdsall. 26 SW Hist. Quarterly 44,45 (1922)]. Birdsall died of yellow fever in 1839.
The Managers of the Ball, whose names are neatly written in ink, are among the leaders of the early Republic: Francis Lubbock [Comptroller, later Governor of Confederate Texas]; James W. Scott, Paymaster in the Texas Army; William Gordon Cooke, who served on Houston's staff in the Battle of San Jacinto and owned a drug store in Houston; William M. Shepherd, surgeon in the Texas army and appointed Secretary of the Navy in December 1837; Berhard E. Bee, Sr., a South Carolinian who settled in Texas in 1836 and became Secretary of State and of the Treasury in the Burnet administration, Secretary of War under Sam Houston, and Secretary of State in the first Lamar Administration; and J.T. Doswell, an incorporator of the Galveston Chamber of Commerce in 1845. Item #38564
Price: $1,000.00