Beautifully engraved certificate from the Cotton Picking Machine Company issued in 1892. This historic document has an ornate border around it. This item is hand signed by the Company's President ( Edward Jeremiah Gurley )and Secretary and is over 120 years old.

GURLEY, EDWARD JEREMIAH (1827-1914) Edward Jeremiah Gurley, lawyer, legislator, and brother of Davis R. Gurley,qv was born in Franklin County, Alabama, on June 7, 1827. He was graduated from La Grange College, Alabama, in 1845 and received a master's degree in 1846. He read law in Tuscumbia, Alabama, and there married Annie Blocker. They had two daughters. In 1852 they moved to Waco, Texas, where Gurley practiced law with his brother-in-law, Richard F. Blocker. When the Civil Warqv began Gurley raised the Thirtieth Texas Cavalry in McLennan and surrounding counties and led the regiment as colonel in the Indian Territory and Arkansas. After the war he returned to his law practice, which consisted largely of land litigation in McLennan, Falls, and Williamson counties; he also acquired extensive landholdings. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1866qv and was elected to the legislature in 1867. His first wife died, and he married Virginia (Jennie) Alexander in 1868. They had one son. In his later years Gurley owned several plantations along the Brazos River; he was president of the Lone Star Cotton Picking Machine Company and of the Collins Company, which owned land in the Mexican coffee region. He died on July 4, 1914. "GURLEY, EDWARD JEREMIAH." The Handbook of Texas Online. <http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/GG/fgu8.html> [Accessed Sun May 16 17:31:49 US/Central 2004 ].