Information Sheet

 

 

R         J. M. White & Company.

378                  Receipt, 1835.

                                    One folder, photocopy.

 

 

 

This is a receipt for 3,094 pounds of lead received by J. M. White & Company, commis­sion and forwarding agents at the “Cliffs of Selma” on the Mississippi River in Jefferson County, Mis­souri.  The lead was credited to the account of John Parkinson.

 

The Cliffs of Selma are located on the west bank of the Mississippi River, in the south­east­ern corner of Jefferson County.  The cliffs are a navigational point for boatmen marking the mid‑way point between St. Louis and Ste. Genevieve.  During the first half of the nine­teenth cen­tury, the settlement at Selma was an important river port for the shipment of lead mined in the interior of Missouri.  It was rivaled only by Herculaneum, also in Jefferson County.  A consider­able amount of the business at Selma involved the storage and forwarding of metal from mines in Jefferson and Washington counties.

 

The receipt issued by J. M. White & Company illustrates the volume of business at Selma by 1835.  In the transaction for John Parkinson alone, over a ton and a half of metal was in­volved.  James M. White, forwarding agent doing business at Selma, settled in Jefferson County in the 1820s.  His business connections in Washington County would have been based in part on White’s marriage to the daughter of John Smith T, the notorious resident of Potosi and one‑time candidate for governor of Missouri.  After his death at Memphis in 1835, Smith’s body was bur­ied at Selma.

 

Index cards for this collection
Questions? Use our Researcher Registration Form
Return to WHMC-Rolla's home page.