Samuel Whiting Autograph Document Signed....
Description
Samuel Whiting Autograph Document Signed. Two pages of a bifolium, 7.75" x 10", Liberty, Texas; November [3 or 30], 1837. A memorandum of agreement between Samuel Whiting and Meredith Duncan in which the latter gives Whiting title to one-third of land he inherited from William Duncan. The agreement is signed by Whiting, Duncan, and William M. Logan, as witness. From the Robert E. Davis Collection.Condition: The agreement has three horizontal folds, with weakening at the crease between each page of the bifolium. There are several small areas where the ink has gone through the paper, with a minor loss of text.
More Information:
"To day said Duncan does hereby agree to make to said Whiting a good & sufficient title deed [of?] one third of the League of land which he inherits as one of the three heirs of Wm. Duncan.the conditions of said such are seven hundred & thirty eight dollars in cash on the first day January 1838 or can be paid in a likely sound negro girl, a slave for life, from over 12 & 20 years of age, seven hundred & thirty eight dollars on the 1st November 1839."
After Whiting, Duncan, and Logan signed the memorandum, Whiting added the following: "I hereby obligate myself to comply with above contract under a penalty of five hundred dollars. S. Whiting" Duncan then added in writing that "The original contract to be left in possession of Wm. M. Logan by agreement of both parties. Meredith Duncan" This was followed by another statement by Whiting which stated that "it is fairly understood that said Duncan shall not be compelled to receive any money that does not pass at par in New Orleans or the above contract the audited government paper excepted. Samuel Whiting"
Samuel Whiting (?-1862?) Texas newspaper publisher, was born in Hartford, Connecticut and moved to Texas in 1825. He settled at Liberty and represented that district at the Convention of 1833, served as secretary of the Consultation at San Felipe de Austin in 1835 and published the Houston National Intelligencer in 1838 and 1839, at the same time that he was printing the laws and journals of the Third Congress of the Republic of Texas. In 1839 Whiting was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of Houston. He set up a printing press at Austin on which he printed the first issue of the Austin City Gazette in October 1839, and published the Austin Daily Bulletin from November 1841 through January 1842. It is unclear where and how Whiting died, with various sources claiming he died in California in the middle 1850s or in the state of New York in 1862.
William M. Logan (1802-1839) was born in Williamson County, Tennessee and moved to Texas in November 1831 and settled near Liberty. In 1835 Logan enlisted in a company of Liberty volunteers fighting Mexico's government and served as lieutenant during the siege of Bexar. In March 1836 at Liberty he was elected captain of the Third Infantry, Second Regiment, of the Texas volunteers who fought the famous Battle of San Jacinto. After the revolution he became the first sheriff of Liberty County and served as tax collector and muster officer. He died of yellow fever in November 1839 while in Houston on business and was buried there.
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