Part 5, Note 34

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Colorado County Deed Records, Book F, p. 234; Colorado County Commissioners Court Minutes, Book 1, p. 46; Lewis E. Daniell, Personnel of the Texas State Government with Sketches of Representative Men of Texas (San Antonio: Maverick Printing House, 1892), p. 606; James A. Kehl, Boss Rule in the Gilded Age Matt Quay of Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1981), pp. 7-9; William S. Speer, Encyclopedia of the New West: Texas, Arkansas, Colorado, New Mexico and Indian Territories (Marshall, Texas: The United States Biographical Publishing Co., 1881), vol. 1, pp. 214-216. The first known mention of Neavitt's "fever pill" is in the earliest known extant edition of the Colorado Citizen, that of August 15, 1857. Neavitt had returned to Colorado County in 1852 after a mostly unsuccessful career as a gold miner. In January 1854, he and Carl H. Gieseke decided to open a grocery store in Columbus. However, the business was a disaster for Neavitt, as Gieseke absconded with more than $1000. Neavitt would finally make his fortune by marrying, on August 7, 1856, William Fitzgerald's daughter Julia (see Texas Monument, August 22, 1854; Colorado County Marriage Records, Book C, p. 42). Quay went on to win the Congressional Medal of Honor for his work as an administrator during the Civil War. He served in the Pennsylvania legislature and in various other offices before rising to the United States Senate in 1887. He served in that body until 1899, and again from 1901 through 1904.