RARE "Confederate General Albert Pike Hand Signed Check Dated 1879

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RARE "Confederate General Albert Pike Hand Signed Check Dated 1879:
$9999.99

Up for sale aRARE! "Confederate General Albert Pike Hand Signed Check Dated 1879. This is one of the only Pike item's offered for sale in many years as most Albert Pike items are in museums.
ES-2828C

Albert Pike(December 29, 1809– April 2, 1891) was an American author, poet, orator, editor, lawyer, jurist and Confederate general who served as anassociate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Courtin exilefrom 1864 to 1865. He had previously served as a seniorofficerof theConfederate States Army, commanding the District ofIndian Territoryin theTrans-Mississippi Theater. A prominent member of theFreemasons, Pike served as the Sovereign Grand Commander of theSupreme Council, Scottish Rite (Southern Jurisdiction, USA)from 1859 to 1889. Albert Pike was born inBoston,Massachusetts, on December 29, 1809, the son of Benjamin and Sarah (Andrews) Pike, and spent his childhood inByfieldandNewburyport, Massachusetts. His colonial ancestors settled the area in 1635,and includedJohn Pike(1613–1688/1689), the founder ofWoodbridge, New Jersey. He attended school in Newburyport andFraminghamuntil he was 15. In August 1825, he passed entrance exams atHarvard University, though when the college requested payment of tuition fees for the first two years, he chose not to attend. He began a program of self-education, later becoming a schoolteacher inGloucester,North Bedford,Fairhavenand Newburyport.Pike was an imposing figure; 6 feet (1.83m) tall and 300 pounds (140kg) with hair that reached his shoulders and a long beard. In 1831, he left Massachusetts to travel west, first stopping inNashville, Tennessee, and later moving toSt. Louis,Missouri. There he joined a hunting and trading expedition toTaos, New Mexico. En route his horse broke and ran, forcing Pike to walk the remaining 500 miles (800km) to Taos. After this, he joined a trapping expedition to theLlano Estacadoin New Mexico and Texas. Trapping was minimal and, after traveling about 1,300 miles (2,100km), half of it on foot, he finally arrived atFort Smith, Arkansas. Settling in Arkansas in 1833, Pike taught in a school and wrote a series of articles for theLittle RockArkansas Advocateunder the pen name of "Casca."The articles were sufficiently well received for him to be asked to join the newspaper's staff. Under Pike's administration, theAdvocatepromoted the viewpoint of theWhig Partyin a politically volatile and divided Arkansas in December 1832.After marrying Mary Ann Hamilton in 1834, he purchased the newspaper.He was the first reporter for theArkansas Supreme Court. He wrote a book (published anonymously), titledThe Arkansas Form Book, which was a guidebook for lawyers. Pike began to study law and was admitted to thebarin 1837, selling theAdvocatethe same year. He proved to be a highly effective lawyer, representing clients in courts at every level, which continued after he received permission to practice before theUnited States Supreme Courtin 1849.He also made several contacts among the Native American tribes in the area. He specialized in claims on behalf of Native Americans against the federal government. In 1852, he representedCreek Nationbefore the Supreme Court in a claim regarding ceded tribal land. In 1854 he advocated for theChoctawandChickasaw, although compensation later awarded to the tribes in 1856 and 1857 was insufficient.These relationships were to influence the course of his Civil War service. He also began a campaign of newspaper essays urging support for the construction of a transcontinental railroad extending fromNew Orleansto the Pacific coast, moving to New Orleans in 1853 and preparing to pass the state bar in furtherance of his campaign, and was ultimately able to secure a charter from theLouisiana State Legislaturefor a project, following which he returned to Little Rock in 1857.He joined the anti-CatholicKnow NothingParty at its founding, and, in the summer of 1854, helped introduce the party in Arkansas. He attended the national convention in 1856, but walked out when it failed to adopt a pro-slavery platform.In the lead-up to the Civil War, Pike signed a pamphlet which proposed expelling all free African Americans from Arkansas. It said that the "evil is the existence among us of a class of free colored persons". Additionally, Pike wrote on several legal subjects. He also continued writing poetry, a hobby he had begun in his youth in Massachusetts. His poems were highly regarded in his day, but are now mostly forgotten. Several volumes of his works were privately published posthumously by his daughter. In 1859, he received an honorary Master of Arts degree from Harvard.