The Hon. Samuel Boyd Patton

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight. Samuel Boyd Patton came into this world in South Carolina in 1787, and right away you get the sense this was a man who was never going to stay put for long. As a youth he moved to Tennessee.

Then came the War of 1812, and Patton served. After that, he moved again, this time to Alabama, where he settled in enough to hold public office and serve in the state legislature. Most men would have called that a career worth keeping.

Not Patton. In 1837, he packed up and moved to Texas. Now, 1837, that's the Republic of Texas we're talking about, and this new land had use for a man who knew his way around public service.

Patton was appointed to the Board of Land Commissioners, and he became a member of the Congress of the Republic of Texas. That right there is not a small thing. He was sitting in the halls of a young nation still figuring out what it was going to be.

Then Texas became a state, and the years kept moving, and so did Patton's contributions. He helped organize Blanco County, and when that county needed its very first chief justice, its first county judge, Samuel Boyd Patton was the man who filled that seat, serving from 1858 to 1860. First.

Not second, not appointed after the fact. First. And if that were the whole story it would be enough.

But in 1865, Patton stepped up again, this time as the second chief justice of Kendall County. South Carolina to Tennessee to Alabama to the Republic of Texas to the first bench in Blanco County to the bench in Kendall County. He died in 1869, and he is buried right across the field from where this marker stands.

Some men chase history. Samuel Boyd Patton just kept showing up, and history had the good sense to follow.

What the marker says

Born in South Carolina in 1787, Samuel Boyd Patton moved to Tennessee as a youth. After serving in the war of 1812, he moved to Alabama, where he held public office and served in the state legislature. In 1837 Patton moved to Texas. He was appointed to the Board of Land Commissioners and was a member of the Congress of the Republic of Texas. He helped organize Blanco County and served as the first chief justice (county judge) from 1858-60. He was the second chief justice in Kendall County in 1865. He died in 1869 and is buried across the field nearby. (1996)