Stock certificate, Texas and German Emigration Company

Beginning in the 1840s, a wave of social unrest in Germany began a flood of immigration to Texas. The Texas and German Emigration Company, also known as the German Emigration Company or the Adelsverein, purchased more than 4,400 acres of land in Fayette County and then advertised the settlement opportunity to Germans . It worked. Some 5,257 Germans arrived in Texas between October 1845 and April 1846. The largest and most well-known of their settlements are New Braunfels in Comal and Guadalupe County and Fredericksburg in Gillespie County.

The Adelsverein went bankrupt in 1853, and sold stock certificates in an attempt to raise additional capital. This certificate was purchased on September 23, 1854, by land speculator Enoch Jones. Jones had been in Texas since 1837 and operated a large mercantile store in San Antonio. Eventually, he was named director of the San Antonio and Mexican Gulf Railway and amassed a property empire along the Medina River totaling 175,00 acres.