Content of Exhibit:

SE Texas was directly involved in American and Texas history, and we will share the documents to prove it. From an original letter from President Lyndon Johnson to a Silsbee citizen surrounding the assignation of President John F. Kennedy, to original Presidential Inauguration Invitations, all a part of our collection of 51 original letters and documents from Lyndon Johnson between the years 1954-1965. All of these letters are relevant to SE Texas history, including letters from LBJ to David Read of Silsbee surrounding Sam Rayburn, the presidential nomination, private invitations to the LBJ Ranch, and an original postcard from Lady Bird.

In addition, we will be exhibiting an original 1863 lithograph of the Emancipation Proclamation with Abraham Lincoln's signature. This document was printed in Chicago while Lincoln was still alive. After the war, it was acquired by a Union soldier (Pvt Cordyn Williams, Ohio), and traveled with four generations of The Williams family to its final home in Silsbee, Texas. Copies of this rare document are in The Smithsonian, and in The Metropolitan Museum in New York. Accompanying this document are copies of the original 1865 mustering out papers of Pvt Williams from the US Army, a decorative 1865 wall hanging celebrating his battalion, Company E, 32nd Division of The Ohio Infantry. A final document in the Emancipation Collection is an original receipt for the purchase of a slave family, a grim reminder of the enormity of the importance of this document in American History.

We will also display several 1824 original handwritten letters from Congress, during the term of President Madison. The letters discuss Daniel Webster and General Dearborn, and display a postmark of Washington DC in 1824. The Congressman who wrote these letters was the father of the namesake of our town, Nathaniel Silsbee. Additionally we will share the original copy of a speech made to Congress by John Henry Kirby protesting The New Deal in the Roosevelt administration. A copy of this speech is protected in The Library of Congress, we will be displaying the original, along with hand written notes in the margins.

Finally we will exhibit numerous other historic documents surrounding the development of the oil and railroad industry, as well as two original letters written in 1881 on the letterhead of the Senate of The State of Texas.