R. Henderson Shuffler

An offprint from the Southwestern Historical Quarterly about an interesting object, though sort of misnamed. This is a correspondence box made from the wood of the building at Washington-on-the-Brazos where the Texas Declaration of Independence was adopted on March 2, 1836. (The Constitution of the Republic of Texas was written there the same week.) The Texas Declaration, however, was never placed or interred in the box in any way, so a tad of a misnomer. A pic of the box, its owner, and its presentation to the State along with a short article on its provenance and a long speech by the politician who helped donate it to the State. Of course, the box's appeal as an artifact is that the wood from the building is all that's really left of the building. (A replica structure sits at the site today.) A neat bit of ephemera.… (mais)