Creuzbaur compiled the Map of the State of Texas, first published in 1849. Much subsequent Texas cartography was based on this map, which was praised by Sam Houston on the floor of the United States Senate. Books de Cordova wrote that were influential in attracting settlers included "The Texas Immigrant and Traveller's Guide Book" (1856), and "Texas, Her Resources and Her Public Men" (1858), the first attempt at an encyclopedia of Texas. Jacob and Phineas de Cordova published two early Texas newspapers, the Texas Herald (also known as De Cordova's Herald and Immigrant's Guide) out of Houston and the Southwestern American out of Austin. The latter was at the solicitation of Governor Peter H. Bell and helped to pass the Compromise of 1850, which resulted in a $10 million payment to Texas for adjusted boundaries after annexation. In the 1850s de Cordova moved from Austin to Seguin, where five miles from town he built for his wife and five children a fine country home, which he called Wanderer's Retreat. In the 1860s he tried to develop a power project on the Brazos River in Bosque County for textile mills to spin Texas cotton. The American Civil War brought financial reverses to de Cordova. When purchasers of his land were unable to make payments he refused to foreclose and turn people off their land; he had first encouraged them to move to Texas. When he died on 26 January 1868, he was buried in Kimball, but in 1935 his body and that of his wife were moved to the State Cemetery of Texas. He was survived by five children. The De Cordova Bend Reservoir, south of Fort Worth on Lake Granbury, and the De Cordova Bend Dam, was named after him. Bibliography Henry Cohen, "The Jews in Texas," Publications of the American Jewish Historical Society 4 (1896). James M. Day, Jacob de Cordova: Land Merchant of Texas (Waco: Heritage Society of Waco, 1962). John H. Jenkins, Basic Texas Books: An Annotated Bibliography of Selected Works for a Research Library (Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1983; reprinted 1988). Natalie Ornish, Pioneer Jewish Texans (Dallas: Texas Heritage Press, 1989). Malcolm H. Stern, First American Jewish Families: 600 Genealogies, 1654-1988, 3rd edn (Baltimore: Ottenheimer, 1991). Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. References External links "DE CORDOVA, JACOB RAPHAEL", The Handbook of Texas Online. Accessed 13 July 2004. Jacob Raphael