Jacob Raphael De Cordova (1808-68). Autograph Letter Signed, written to the Clerk of Montgomery County.

Originally of Spanish Town, Jamaica, Jacob DeCordova moved to Philadelphia with his family as a child, where his father became president of Congregation Mikveh Israel. Jacob moved back to Jamaica as a young man, and was a founder in 1834 of the Kingston Daily Gleaner along with his brother Joshua. He settled in Galveston, Texas in 1839, where he was elected a state representative. Desiring to have Texas settled, he acquired one million acres of land and traveled extensively in the cities of the east to attract settlers for Texas. He and his partner laid out the town of Waco in 1848. See James M. Day, Jacob de Cordova: Land Merchant of Texas (Waco: Heritage Society of Waco, 1962); Natalie Ornish, Pioneer Jewish Texans (Dallas: Texas Heritage Press, 1989).