MARLIN / TEX // 1 Sept [1863] small cds with manuscript “Paid 10,” listed in CSA catalog with asterisk, thus a legacy listing not hitherto seen by the editors, folded LETTER from W. Killebrew to J[osé] San Román, Brownsville, Texas, a well-known cotton broker, regarding shipment and payment for cotton. Scarce use from Falls County, Texas. CCV $500. Ex Kathleen Staples. $500.

José San Román was a merchant, banker and broker in the contraband cotton trade of the Civil War. He came to America in the late 1830s and settled in New Orleans. In 1846, San Roman moved to Matamoros and established a dry-goods firm. By 1850, the business extended across the Rio Grande to the newly incorporated town of Brownsville, Texas. San Roman prospered and expanded his business into commercial credit, real estate and cotton brokerage. By 1860 San Román moved to Brownsville and with his partners monopolized credit services to smaller merchants, forcing many of them out of business. During the Union blockade, San Román became a key figure in the contraband trade in Bagdad, Brownsville, and Matamoros.   His firm served as a brokerage house for hundreds of cotton farmers west of the Mississippi River. He moved back to Matamoros in the early 1860s and sold cotton wholesale to textile firms in New York, England, and Germany, thereby avoiding the interference of U.S. military and civil authorities on the Texas side of the Rio Grande. By 1870, he was considered one of the wealthiest men in South Texas. Bartlett and Killebrew owned a general merchandise store and had their goods hauled by freight from Houston.