SIGNED BY TEDDY ROOSEVELT & WOODROW WILSON (DIPLOMACY.) PAYNE, CHRISTOPHER H[ARRISON]. ROOSEVELT, THEODORE & WOODROW WILSON. Two partially printed Presidential documents accomplished by hand and signed, appointing Christopher Payne to the post of Consul to the Virgin Islands. Vellum with fancy calligraphy, and the Great Seal of the United States of America; creases where once folded; framed. Washington, D.C. 1903-1919
Christopher Harrison Payne (1848-1925) was the first African American to serve in the West Virginia Legislature. Payne was raised and educated by his mother, his father having died when he was two. As a young man, Payne worked as a farmhand and as a servant in the Confederate Army. After attending night school in Charleston, he graduated from the Richmond Theological Institute and State University in Louisville. Following the Civil War, Payne pioneered in the field of black journalism, establishing three newspapers -- the West Virginia Enterprise, The Pioneer, and the Mountain Eagle. In 1896, Payne was elected to the West Virginia Legislature as a Republican delegate from Fayette County. He represented the state's Third Congressional District at the National Republican Convention on three occasions. Payne was rewarded for his service to the party with appointments to various positions within the U.S. Bureau of Internal Revenue. He studied law and was admitted to the bar while working at the Bureau. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt named Payne as Consul General to the Virgin Islands--the first document offered here. After the United States acquired the islands in 1917, Payne served as prosecuting attorney and police judge in St. Thomas. He was again named Consul in 1919, the second document offered here. He died in St. Thomas on December 5, 1925.
