An archive of letters and documents from he 1930s relative to the Spindletop-Beaumont claims of Pelham Humphries.in Jefferson County, Texas. Blackmon, W[alter] T[homas] (1892-1973), Jefferson County Clerk, Beaumont, Texas; Pelham Humphries (1810?-1835?) ; Mrs. B.B. Spindle; W.T. Wlliam Humphries; John Martins; history

A fascinating collection of correspondence relating to spurious Depression-era claims on the famed Beaumont estate of Pelham Humphries. In 1834, Humphries, a colonist in the disputed lands along the U.S. border with Mexico, filed a claim for a league of land to the west of the Neches River. The land was deemed valueless until oil was discovered there in 1901, by which time it had become known as Spindletop, and the area became the epicenter of the Texas oil boom. Humphries died in obscurity and there was no transfer of title. After oil was found, hundreds of people laid claim to the land and demanded a share in the profits. Numerous lawsuits followed and continued through the 2010s, some extending over decades and involving thousands of claimants. This archive constitutes W.T. Blackmon, the Jefferson County Clerk's, file of inquiries from various claimants and representatives between 1931 and 1932.A collection of about 100 pieces of correspondence between claimants to the Pelham Humphries fortune, from the files of W[alter] T[homas] Blackmon (1892-1973), Jefferson County Clerk, Beaumont, Texas. 1931-1932. Condition of letters ranges from crisp to ragged. Housed in an archival box, 0.25 linear feet.'.A fcollection of correspondence relating to the vast fortune accumulated through the discovery of oil in Texas in 1901. In 1834 Pelham Humphries (1810?-1835?), a colonist in the disputed lands along the US border with Mexico, filed a claim for a league ? some 4,428 acres ? of land to the west of the Neches River, a few miles south of what is now Beaumont in Jefferson County, Texas. A patchwork of swamp and grassland good only for grazing, the land, which came to be called ?Spindletop,? was deemed valueless. But in 1901 a geological expedition sank a well on Spindletop and struck a gusher. Beaumont became the epicenter of the Texas oil boom. The fields there produced more oil in a day than the fields in the rest of the world combined; over 17 million barrels in 1902. Everyone who owned land in Jefferson County made money, but none so much as William Perry Herring McFadden (1856-1935), a rancher who had bought Spindletop in 1883 and became one of the richest men in the world. The problem was that when McFadden bought the land, its ownership was in dispute. Humphries had died in obscurity, possibly killed in a gunfight or perhaps hanged for stealing horses ? no aspect of his life is uncontested -- and there was no clear transfer of title. The first suit over the Humphries Land Grant was filed in 1880. McFadden hedged his bets by purchasing the rights of both parties in the suit, but later claimants have argued that neither had a legitimate interest. When geologists stuck oil hundreds of people discovered genealogy. The story swiftly spread that the heirs to the Humphries estate were due a share in the profits from the great companies that extracted oil from Spindletop. With accumulated interest, the estate was worth millions, perhaps billions. ?Suddenly, everyone remembered ?Uncle Pelham' Humphries,? remarks one historian (Petty, 24). A series of lawsuits ensued, beginning shortly after the discovery and continuing through the 2010s, some extending over decades. The suits typically aggregated the interests of a great many claimants. The first major case over title to the Humphries land grant, Thomas Anderson et al. vs. A. F. Lucas et al., involved over 1000 individuals and corporations. Glover v. McFaddin, which was tried in various courts from the 1940s until it was tossed out in 1953 by the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, pitted some 2500 plaintiffs, all claiming kinship with Humphries, against 20 individual and corporate defendants. Three simultaneous suits known as ?the Humphries trilogy? concluded with a single order of dismissal in 1968. About 3,000 members of the Humphries Heirs Trust Association were the plaintiffs in Peregoy v. Amoco Production, which ended in disappointment. ?This court desperately desires that the g