The Court Oak

There is a tree stump in the middle of Travis Street beside the Colorado County courthouse, and the roadway was built around it on purpose. In April 1837 the first term of the district court under the Republic of Texas convened on this spot, under the branches of the live oak that stood here, because there was no building in town suitable for holding court in. There was no building in town because Sam Houston had ordered Columbus burned the previous year, during the retreat that ended at San Jacinto, to deny the town to Santa Anna's advancing army. So the Republic's justice in this county began outdoors, under a tree, in the ashes of the place it was meant to govern. It is a small detail that says a good deal about how thin the Republic's institutions really were in their first year. The presiding judge was Robert McAlpin Williamson, known throughout Texas as Three Legged Willie. The name came from a childhood illness that left his right leg permanently bent at the knee, so that he walked on a wooden peg strapped below it. Court under the oak was brisk by any standard. In a grand larceny case tried here on May 17, 1839, the sentence handed down was thirty nine lashes on the bare back, a brand of the letter T on the right hand, and the costs of the suit. The oak survived into the twentieth century and the stump was kept when the tree finally went. It is easy to miss, sitting directly in the carriageway, marked by a plaque.