John T. Mills

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it its due. John T. Mills.

The name alone carries some weight, and Texas knew it well. Born in County Antrim, Ireland, on November the twelfth, 1817, this man would cross an ocean and plant himself deep in the story of a brand new republic. Now, when Texas was still its own nation, still figuring out what it meant to be a country, it needed judges.

It needed men who could sit on a bench and bring some order to a wild frontier experiment. Mills was one of those men. He served as Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas, from 1839 to 1840, and then again from 1842 to 1845.

That's not one chapter of judicial service, that's two. The Republic called on him, and he answered twice. Then Texas joined the union, and Mills kept right on working.

He served as a district judge for the state of Texas from 1846 to 1850. The republic became a state, and he moved right along with it. His honor endures in a particular way, too, the kind of endurance that gets written on maps.

Mills County, Texas, was named in his honor. So every time somebody crosses that county line, in a manner of speaking, they're tipping a hat to a man from County Antrim, Ireland, who came to a young republic and helped hold it together with law and order. John T.

Mills died on November the thirtieth, 1871. And the marker remembers one more person alongside him. Octavia, born Jones, widow first of William A.

Adair, and then of John T. Mills himself. She outlived both husbands, and the marker gives her her full name and her full story in one careful sentence.

Octavia Adair-Mills died November the twentieth, 1890. Two lives, one stone, and a county on the map that carries the name forward.

What the marker says

Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, Republic of Texas, 1839-40, 1842-45; district judge, state of Texas, 1846-50. Mills County, Texas was named in his honor. Born in County Antrim, Ireland, Nov. 12, 1817; died Nov. 30, 1871. Octavia (Jones) Adair-Mills, widow of William A. Adair, and of John T. Mills. Died Nov. 20, 1890.