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Elegantly engraved oblong broadsheet, 8" x 10-1/2". Printed using several different fonts, vignette of eagle standing on banner with wings outstretched at head of certificate, two smaller vignettes of Black laborers picking cotton at left and bottom center. Entire certificate surrounded with decorative border. Within the borders: "3,000 SHARES" and "SHARES $100 EACH., Twenty-five cent revenue stamp at top left corner. Signatures of C[harles] C. Puffer, Secretary, and Alfred Ely, President. On verso is form for transfer of shares. Fine. Sea Island cotton was a long-fiber cotton grown on the "sea islands, along the coasts of South Carolina, Georgia, Florida and Texas. Its fine, uniform texture and silk luster rendered it the most desirable of cotton. Thousands of acres of cotton fields became available near the end of the Civil War when plantation owners fled before the Union Army and newly free Black workers deserted their plantations. Northern businessmen sought these desirable plantations. The Sea Island Company, also known as the Sea Island Cotton Company, was organized by Northern businessman William G. Markham, a cattle and sheep breeder, with a three million dollar capitalization and the aim to relaunch these "Sea Island" plantations with salaried Black labor. The Sea Island Company later merged with the U.S. Cotton Company around 1867. William Guy Markham [1836-1922] was part of an extended family business active in selling wheat, cattle, sheep and cotton. William inherited much of his father's land and in 1858 began breeding Durham cattle, establishing himself as one of the most successful cattle dealers in America, doing business throughout America. In 1872, he plunged himself into the American Merino sheep industry and took the business worldwide. [Puffer-Markham Family Papers, William L. Clements Library, The University of Michigan.] Charles Chenery Puffer [1841-1915] was a bank cashier and financier with the Shelburne Falls Bank of Massachusetts before acting as Secretary and managing plantations for the Sea Island Cotton Company in Columbia, South Carolina. He was the brother-in-law of William G Markham. A Columbia carpetbagger, Puffer campaigned for the local Republican party while actively supporting Governor Daniel H. Chamberlain. Puffer later moved north and owned a dairy farm in Avon, New York, with Markham. [Puffer-Markham Family Papers, William L. Clements Library, The University of Michigan.] Alfred Ely [1815-1892], a native of Connecticut, moved to Rochester at the age of twenty, where he studied law and passed the bar in 1841. He was a Republican Congressman from 1859 - 1863. In July, 1861, Ely was one of dozens of Congressmen and hundreds of civilian tourists who set out with picnic baskets to watch the First Battle of Bull Run. As the battle turned bloody, spectators fled. Ely was captured and housed in Richmond at Libby Prison. He spent six months at Libby and was exchanged on Christmas Day in 1861. It is said that William G. Markham sought out Ely as a high-profile figure to front the Sea Island Company. [Biographical Directory of the United States Congress; "Was the First Battle of Bull Run Really 'The Picnic Battle'?" by Kat Eschner, July 21, 2017, Smithsonian Magazine website, accessed September 2025.] Thomas George Ferreby [1839-1876] was born in New York and settled in Clinton County, Iowa. He enlisted as a corporal with Company H, Iowa 14th Volunteer Infantry Union in October 1861, and earned promotions to 1st Lieutenant and Adjutant. He was then mustered in as Lieutenant Colonel to Company S, 26th Iowa Infantry Union, in September 1862. He was wounded severely at Arkansas Post on January 11, 1863, and again on November 24, 1863 at Lookout Mountain, Tennessee. He was discharged on February 20, 1865, and returned to Clinton where he served as county sheriff. Ferreby applied for disability pension and was approved, but his benefits went into limbo because he disappeared in 1875. Finally, after yea.
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