WRITINGS OF SAM HOUSTON, 184,2
151
the laws will sink,.and the violence of the strong many will take its place. I do sincerely hope, Judge, that this case will claim your particular attention. Sam Houston [Rubric] mHouston's Private Executive Record Book," pp. 256-257, courtesy of Mr. Franklin Williams. Judge William Jefferson Jones (September 27, 1810-l\fay 5, 1897) was born in Caroline County, Virginia. He was given a good education and at the age of fifteen was recorder of deeds in the County Clerk's office of Caroline County. His brother was the clerk. He studied law and received his license in 1829 (age 19 years), and began his practise in Loudoun County, where he became a warm friend of Ex-President James Monroe. President Monroe advised the young man to travel about for a year or so and then to go West, or Southwest to begin his career. He first went to Charleston to visit; from there to Baltimore, and then to Washington, D. C., where he spent a year or more. There he met and became friends with William Wirt, who helped him to obtain a permit to practise before the United States Supreme Court. Visiting in Georgia he came in contact with many prominent public men, among whom was Mirabeau B. Lamar, in whose newspaper office he became an assistant editor for a short time. He arrived at Galveston on November 9, 1837. During 1838-1839 he held a commission from Lamar· to raise a battalion of three companies for the protection of the frontier; and in June, 1839, he was ordered to join Colonel Burleson ,vith two of his companies to help suppress an Indian uprising. Thus, he took part in the Cherokee War of 1839. After the Indian campaign he became a candidate for the judgeship of the Second Judicial District. He received the appointment. He married Elizabeth Gibson, a woman from New Jersey, and moved to Columbus on the Colorado, where in addition to his law practise he became a farmer and stock man. After the annexation of Texas to the Union, he formed a law partnership with R. Jones Rivers, and in 1852 moved to Virginia Point, Galveston County, where the firm of Jones & Rivers did a large practice. In time he developed a plantation and stock ranches on this Virginia Point estate. He died at this home and lies buried, in fulfillment of an oft-expressed request, in the old family grave yard at Virginia Point. See The Le,vis Publishing Company, Chicago, 1895; His- tory of Texas, Togethe1· With a, Biographi.cal History of the Cities of Houston and Galveston, 722, 728; Paddock, Twentieth Century History and Biog1·aphical Reco1·d of No1·th and West Texas, I, 297; Texa11s a11d Thei1· State, II, 23; Austin City Gazette (marriage notice), February 17, 1841; Austin Daily Statesman (obituary), May 6, 1897. Lama.r Papers (6 vols.) passim.
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