?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 500 - $ 750
(WEST--DAKOTA TERRITORY.) Stockholder list for a placer mine; with a group of documents from Black Hills mining claims, and more. 9 items, each about legal size or larger; stockholder list with curling from old folds, otherwise minimal wear. Pennington County, SD, 1877-1887
Stockholder signature lists for the Black Hills Placer Mining Company. 116 partially-printed pages with 183 signatures, approximately legal size, bound with ribbon in top margin. Pennington County, SD, October-November 1880.
The Black Hills Placer Mining Company was founded in 1879 with claims near Rockerville, SD. The well-known author Ambrose G. Bierce served as the company's general agent, taking a short break from his writing career. As explained in these documents, the founding contractor Ichabod M. West soon suffered a financial failure, which forced the company to restructure. Bierce resigned his position in the company that month. Each stockholder signed a consent form. This packet begins with a 7-page list of 183 stockholders. The bulk consists of 109 stock subscription lists, each with the company's preamble and restructuring resolution, and each completed with the signatures of one or more stockholders plus witnesses.
Among the notable stockholders who signed here is Union Civil War general Alexander Shaler, who was the company's president and leading stockholder, and signed many of these certificates as witness. The cartoonist Thomas Nast signed for his 400 shares on 8 October. Two other notable stockholders were industrialist Cornelius J. Vanderbilt, who owned 4,000 shares; and Bierce, who owned 5,000 shares. They both offered permission via the signatures of their attorneys, on the same sheet. See Fatout, "Ambrose Bierce and the Black Hills" (1956).
Also included in the lot are 6 deeds from Pennington County in southwestern Dakota Territory:
Quitclaim deed to two claims "below discovery in Janney mining district, the same being 300 feet in length each," signed by mark, 4 June 1877.
Quitclaim deed to the "mining claim or lode known and recorded as the Dublin Lode . . . in Bear Gulch Mining District. 4 December 1877.
Deed of water rights "of the entire current of Rapid Creek, the initial point of said water right being the junction of Castle and Little Rapid Creeks." 2 April 1881.
Quitclaim deed to 8 town lots in the town of Rockerville, 31 May 1881.
Bill of sale to "two bay mares known as the Merritt Team," plus a half interest in 5 other horses, plus harnesses and buggies. 29 December 1881.
Quitclaim deed for a parcel of land on Main Street in Rockerville "improved by the Reisdou brothers and occupied as a saloon." 21 January 1884.
Also, manuscript articles of incorporation of the "Manhattan Consolidated Gold and Silver Mining Company" with $1,000,000 of capital stock. 5 February 1880; and
Incorporation certificate for the Rapid Creek Lumber and Navigation Company issued to three partners by the Territory of Dakota, signed by the territorial secretary, with the territorial seal. 7 March 1887.
