English: Postal Date: June 16, 1892, Valparaiso, Indiana

Scott Catalog Number of Postal Card: UX9 Collection: Steven R. Shook

SENDER: H. J. Upthegrove Valparaiso, Indiana

RECIPIENT: Amory R. Starr Marshall, Texas

LETTER TEXT: Valparaiso, Ind., June 16 1892 Mr. Amory R. Starr Dear Sir: We ship coats to you by express today. We shall be pleased to hear from you on receipt of the same. Yours, with thanks, H. J. Upthegrove

REMARK: Amory R. Starr was a prominent Texas politician and a leading member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Amory Reily Starr (1847-1906), lawyer, soldier, and politician, the son of Harriet (Johnson) and James Harper Starr, was born on August 24, 1847, in Nacogdoches, Texas. He attended Nacogdoches University, which offered courses from the elementary grades to college level. During the first years of the Civil War he ran away from home four times to join the Confederate Army and finally on July 4, 1864, was allowed to serve as a private and scout in Company H of Col. William P. Hardeman’s Fourth Texas Cavalry. After the war he again attended Nacogdoches University and then the University of Virginia, where he received a law degree. After returning to Nacogdoches he and his friend Peyton Forbes Edwards were in law partnership for a brief period before 1873, when Starr assumed control of the James H. Starr and Son land agency, which had belonged to his father and brother, James Franklin Starr; the Starr family had moved to Marshall in 1870.

During Reconstruction Starr joined the Knights of the White Camellia. Because of the group’s antiblack activities in Harrison County, officers of the federal government placed Starr and other members in the stockade at Jefferson, but none of the group would testify against the others, and the charges against them were dropped. Starr was one of the organizers of the Citizens party, which restored white Democrats to control in Harrison County in the 1878 election. He preferred acting as a party official and leader in local politics to seeking election to state or national office; he stated in 1882 that he would “rather be chairman of a white league, Capt of a rifle club or Mayor of Marshall. We make congressmen.” He served as a member of the state Democratic executive committee, was elected mayor of Marshall, and was appointed a regent of the University of Texas in 1893 by Governor James Stephen "Big Jim" Hogg. Starr died in Marshall on December 15, 1906, and was buried in Greenwood Cemetery there. [Source: Handbook of Texas Online]

William H. Holabird began the production of shooting suits around 1869. The suits became rather popular, but Holabird sold the business in September 1880 to H. J. Upthegrove and John W. McLellan due to health issues. It is believed that the business later came under the sole ownership of Upthegrove, and in 1882 there were 15 individuals employed by Upthegrove in the manufacture and sale of shooting suits.

Source: Porter County Vidette, Valparaiso, Porter County, Indiana; September 9, 1880; Volume 24, Number 37, Page 3, Column 1. Column titled "Local."

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