Cordova, Jacob Raphael De

Jacob Raphael De Cordova (June 6, 1808 - January 28, 1868) was an early Texas booster, politician, land speculator, and publisher. De Cordova was born in Spanish Town (Kingston), Jamaica, to a prosperous coffee-planting family of British Jews of Spanish ancestry. Cordova's mother died in childbirth, and he was thus sent to England to be raised by an aunt. There, he received an excellent education, mastering English, French, Spanish, German, and Hebrew. Around 1830, he returned to America, settling in Philadelphia with his father; however, soon after, in 1834, the family returned to Kingston, Jamaica. There he founded a newspaper, The Gleaner, which remains in publication and is the oldest continuously published newspaper in the Western Hemisphere. From at least 1836, De Cordova was involved with Texas, first as a supplier of staple goods to Texas Revolutionaries through intermediaries in New Orleans. Later, he traveled to Texas in person to establish Odd Fellows lodges - he was a Grand Master of this fraternal order. Finding Texas appealing, he settled in Galveston in 1839. Shortly afterward, he moved to nearby Houston. In 1847, was elected a state representative to the Second Texas Legislature. Throughout the Republic of Texas period (1836 - 1846), he traveled extensively across the country, acquiring land through scrip and purchase, at one point controlling nearly 1,000,000 acres. He aggressively promoted Texas emigration, writing articles and books and delivering compelling speeches on the topic throughout the United States and in Europe. His land agency became one of the largest such agencies ever to operate in the Southwest. Among his other accomplishments, he laid out the town of Waco. His maps of Texas are among his most significant works. Partnering with engineer an surveyor Robert Creuzbaur (1823 - 1911), De Cordova began publishing separate-issue Texas maps in 1849, with updated editions appearing sporadically until about 1866. All are rare and significant, being the foundation for most subsequent Texas cartography. De Cordova died in Austin while working on a scheme to industrialize the Brazos River.