Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 825 of 894

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

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1870, he was united in marriage to Miss Susan B.
Howard. They have five children, viz.: Nellie B.,
Katie H., William Howard, Thomas Pope and
Frank Ross Davidson. In January, 1887, Judge
Davidson moved to Georgetown, in Williamson
County, which remains his non-official home. He
was Assistant Attorney-General for four years,
from February 4th, 1887 (Governor L. S. Ross'
administration), until February 2, 1891, when he
was appointed by Governor James S. Hogg an Associate
Justice of the Court of Criminal Appeals to
fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Judge
Sam. A. Wilson. During the war between the
States he served in the Confederate army as a
soldier in Company B., Thirty-second Regiment of
Texas Cavalry, and was with Taylor's army during
the Louisiana campaign in 1864, that was so brilliantly
signalized by the battles of Mansfield,
Pleasant Hill and Yellow Bayou, and resulted in
driving Banks back to Lower Louisiana. Judge
Davidson has always been a Democrat, and has
done good work for the party. He is a member of
the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and Masonic
fraternity. As a practitioner at the bar he
won deserved renown, not only as an able lawyer,
but as a forcible speaker, and as a lawyer whose
hands were clean, whose heart was pure and who
never deserted his clients. The writer of this
article remembers a dramatic scene in which Judge
Davidson was one of the principal actors. He was
employed in a case in which he felt no personal,
but certainly a deep professional, interest. The
defendants were charged with murder. The killing
for which they were arraigned took place under
circumstances that aroused the greatest public in.
dignation. The town and county were in a wild
state of excitement, and threats of mob violence
were openly made. The occasion to which I
refer was the taking of evidence in the District
Court upon an application that he had
made for bail under habeas corpus proceedings.
The court-room was packed with eager spectators
and listeners who glared at the defendants like so

many hungry tigers. There was not a friendly
face in the courtroom. The least mistake upon the
part of the counsel would have precipitated bloodshed.
Judge Davidson, while perfectly cool, stood
firmly up for the rights of his clients. His personal
bearing and the skill with which he managed
his side of the case, won for him the admiration of
the court, local members of the bar, and even the
hostile crowd by which he was surrounded upon all
sides and which at the beginning felt for him very
little less animosity than it did for the men whom
he was defending. After court adjourned, at the
close of the proceedings, such remarks as the following
were to be heard upon the streets: "Judge
Davidson was more than a match for all the lawyers
that were pitted against him. I tell you, he is a
mighty fine lawyer. Did you notice how cool he
was, how he stood up for the rights of his clients
and how he took advantage of every mistake of the
other side, while he was gentlemanly and courteous
throughout; they couldn't bulldoze him worth a
cent. He is the man, if I were in trouble, that I
would want.to employ." Judge Davidson's appointment
to the bench of the Criminal Court of Appeals
met with the hearty approbation of his brother
members of the legal profession and of the people
of Texas, and he has since been nominated and
elected to that position practically without opposition.
He possesses an essentially judicial mind.
A man of tender sensibilities, he nevertheless possesses
the power of laying sentiment entirely aside
and looking exclusively at the law of the case in
passing upon a question submitted to the court upon
appeal, and guiding his course solely by the polestar
of duty. He possesses the rare faculty of
looking at both sides of an issue, and giving full
weight and credit to the authorities and arguments
submitted in support of each side, and forming a
correct decision. As a result it is not strange that
he should have been elected to the position that he
now holds and that while holding it he reflects
honor upon himself, and credit upon the State and
the high court of which he is a member.

W. H. FORD,
BEAUMONT.

Judge W. H. Ford was born in Newton County,
Texas, August 13th, 1843. Parents, David and
Mariah V. Ford.

His father was one of the pioneer ministers of
the M. E. Church South, in Texas.
Judge Ford acquired a good literary education in