RARE “Indicted Jefferson Davis” John Curtis Underwood Clipped Signature Mounted for Sale

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RARE “Indicted Jefferson Davis” John Curtis Underwood Clipped Signature Mounted For Sale

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RARE “Indicted Jefferson Davis” John Curtis Underwood Clipped Signature Mounted:
$999.99

Up for saleRARE! “Indicted Jefferson Davis” John Curtis Underwood Clipped Signature MountedTo a 3X5 Album Page
ES-7038

John Curtiss Underwood(March14, 1809 – December 7, 1873) was anattorney,abolitionistpolitician and aUnited States district judgeoftheUnited States District Court for the District of VirginiaandtheUnited States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia..Born inLitchfield,New York, Underwood graduated fromHamilton Collegein 1832,and was a founding member ofAlpha Delta Phi.[Underwood traveled to whatwas then westernVirginiaafter graduation and taughtchildren of the Jackson family inClarksburgfor twoyears.He then returned to New York toread lawand began a private legal practice, which hecontinued in New York and Virginia from 1839 to 1856. On October 21, 1839,inFauquier County, Virginia,Underwood married Maria Gloria Jackson, one of his former pupils. She was agranddaughter ofEdward B. Jackson(whosebrotherJohn G. Jacksonandgreat-nephewJohn Jay Jackson Jr.werealso federal judges); her cousin (on both sides)Stonewall Jacksonbecame a distinguished Confederategeneral. The Underwoods farmed inHerkimer County, New York,for about a decade. They had two daughters and a son, Edward J. Underwood(1842–1907), before moving toClarke County, Virginia,near Maria's family. Underwood had been aWhig, but as that partywas disintegrating, he joined theLiberty Partyinthe 1840s because of his anti-slavery views. He unsuccessfully ran forUnited States Representativeandthendistrict attorneyin1847. He joined theFree Soil Partyin1848 and in the following year moved with his young family back to Virginia.Underwood hoped that successful operation of a dairy farm and cheesemaking factoryin adjoining Clarke and Fauquier counties would show the superiority of usingfree, rather than slave, labor. When theRepublican Partywasbeing formed, Underwood became one of its first supporters in Virginia, and in1856 he traveled to the party's convention inPhiladelphia,Pennsylvania, whereJohn C. Fremontwas nominated for United StatesPresident.Underwood's vigorous campaign for Fremont, theRepublican Party, andabolitionismledto his receiving death threats, so in 1857 he temporarily left Virginia for NewYork and wrote of his persecution in an account published inThe New York Times.In 1857, PresidentJames Buchanannamed Underwood Chief Justice of theNebraska Territory,but Underwood declined the appointment and didnot appear in the courts there. Underwood became Secretary of the Emigrant Aidand Homestead Society (which he incorporated with MassachusettscongressmanEli Thayer) from 1856 to 1861. He workedto encourage the migration of Republicans and European emigrants to theOhio Valleycounties of Virginia. (These counties wouldbecomeWest Virginiawhen Virginia secededfrom the Union in 1861.) His efforts met with little success and then vanishedcompletely in October 1859 in the aftermath ofJohn Brown'sraid on Harper's Ferry, when the Black Horse Cavalry searched andconfiscated the Underwoods' Virginia property by order of GovernorHenry A. Wise. Only Maria and the children lived there at thetime; Underwood had been permitted to return only temporarily to settle hisaffairs after giving his pro-Fremont speech. TheWheeling Daily Intelligencer,whichUnderwood supported financially, became the most influential Republican paperin any major slaveholding state. In 1860, Underwood was a delegate to theRepublican Convention inChicago,Illinoisthat selectedAbraham Lincolnas its candidate. He campaigned forLincoln in border states, and on October 17, 1860, made possibly the onlyspeech in favor of that Republican candidate in Virginia, inBellton, (now WestVirginia). TheNew York Tribunepublished that endorsementspeech, which extolled the superiority of free over slave labor, about a weeklater.