Las Sabinas, Volume 24, Number 2, April 1998 Page: 3
This periodical is part of the collection entitled: Las Sabinas History Journal and was provided to The Portal to Texas History by the Orange County Historical Society.
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affidavits to obtain a 640 acre land grant. He was 32 years of age and served as the District Attorney
for the 5th Judicial District from 1839 until 1842. He died in 1859 at the age of 50. His brother
James Ogden was a member of the ill-fated Mier Expedition of the Army of the Republic of Texas
and was executed by the Mexican Army December 1, 1842.(5)
JOHN C. LAWHON
The Progenitor
Mr. J.C. Lawhon gets the nod as being Orange's first lawyer. John C. Lawhon was listed in the 1840
Census as a 32 year old lawyer from Tennessee with 21 head of cattle and 4 slaves. The State
Archives reflect that he received land grant number 35 in Jefferson County for a league of land (4,428
acres) March 10, 1935.(6) He declared those acres on the 1840 tax roles. The Deed Records of
Jefferson County still contain the original Mexican land grant to Lawhon.(7) It was executed by
"Jeorge Antonio Nixon, Comisionada Especial por el Supremo Gobreimo del Estado de Coahila y
Texas". At that time all of the land from Nacogdoches to the Gulf and from the Sabine River to
Liberty were in Zavala's Colony and subject to his control on behalf of the Mexican government.
Lawhon was admitted into the, "...colona de Empresario Excellency Lorenzo de Zavala en la empresa
de colonizacion contratudos por el empresario..." He was placed in possession of real and personal
property at a location, "...de un bosque en un vasta llano al sur..." or where there were woods in a
vast flat land to the south. The property was noted on the map of surveyor David Choat the
"agriminsor cuidad". This grant was signed by Senor Nixon, "En la villa de Nachognoches a las diez
dias del mes de Marzo de Mil Ocho Cientos treinta y cinco Anos"; on March 10, 1835 in
Nacogdoches. This land grant was wisely recorded with the Republic of Texas local government
after Texas gained it's independence from Mexico. Alexander Calder in one of his first acts as
County Clerk on November 19, 1839 acknowledged that John Brooke, Chief Justice of the County
had received the grant the preceding June and had accepted, "...from David E. Lawhon for John C.
Lawhon in Texas Script Forty dollars and forty cents in payment of public dues on one league of land
granted by George Antony Nixon". For tax purposes it was classed in two categories; 8 labors of
temporal or arable land and 17 labors of pasture land.(8) In only a few short years the name of Senor
Jeorge Antonio Nixon, the Comisionada Especial had become Anglicized to George Antony Nixon.
That speaks of what must have been occurring in all facets of life with the change in language and
culture as the Texacans took over the land and government.
John C. Lawhon was carried on the Muster Rolls as a member of Thomas S. McFarland's Company
of Texas Volunteers June 12, 1836.(9) Other members of his unit were C.S. Hunt who was later to
help survey and file the town plat for Green's Bluff and Lipscomb Norvel.
Lawhon's property was located in the Little Cypress area of what is now Orange County. The
February 16, 1857 Minutes of the Orange County Commissioners Court, meeting in the warehouse
of H.B. Force, contains the following verification of the Orange residency of Lawhon and another
early lawyer.(10)
"On Motion of Hugh Ochiltree, the road leading to Newton shall be designated No. 1 and
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Orange County Historical Society (Tex.). Las Sabinas, Volume 24, Number 2, April 1998, periodical, April 1998; Orange, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth312904/m1/9/?q=%22J.C.+Lawhon%22: accessed June 3, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Orange County Historical Society.