(TEXAS) Papers of the Proetzel family German American mercha

Sale 2404 - Lot 255

Price Realized: $ 688

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750

(TEXAS.) Papers of the Proetzel family, German-American merchants in Houston. 251 items (0.3 linear feet) in one box; condition generally strong. Vp, 1858-99 (bulk 1858-66)

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These are the papers of Houston grocer and dry goods merchant August Proetzel (1817-1885) and his widow Julia Leverkuhn Proetzel (1826-1908). They came to Texas from Hanover, Prussia in 1849. This collection consists mostly of their mercantile correspondence and receipts, much of it in German. One letter from the Internal Revenue Service in 1878 explains the regulations for making wine.
Also included is a mostly blank ledger with a printed title page reading "Planter's Book A, Containing Daily Account of Hands Hired, Planter's Diary, Hands Hired on Plantation, also Record of Cotton Picking." It was issued in Houston in 1866, and according to a 19 February 1866 publisher's ad in the city's Tri-Weekly Telegraph, it was created "out of the change in the system of labor in the South" to allow a planter to "keep his freedman accounts." The ledger was not used for its intended purpose, but does include an 1899 agreement to fill a gully on Julia Proetzels land on Washington Street, August Proetzel's 1881 will, and his widow's 1885 probate filings. Provenance: August Proetzel to daughter Margarette Proetzel Kalb (1863-1947); then from the estate of her grandson John Alvis Kalb (1937-2006).