Howdy and welcome to Wise About Texas, the podcast about Texas, about Texas history, culture, and everything Texan.

I'm your host, Ken Wise, and this is episode one.

For episode one, I thought I'd combine Texas history with my current service as a judge

and talk about the first judges of Texas.

Now, Texas has a lot of judges.

We have state trial courts, county trial courts,

Justice of the Peace Courts, State Court of Appeals, which is what I'm on, two Supreme Court,

one called the Supreme Court of Texas and one called the Court of Criminal Appeals.

We're a big state with lots of people, and that means lots of court cases, but it hadn't

always been this way.

So let's go back to the 1820s and get wise about Texas.

Now, you'd think there'd be one first judge of Texas, but neither lawyers nor Texans would

ever make things that easy.

The first judge of the Republic of Texas was Benjamin Cromwell Franklin, but we're going to get him in a minute because I can't call him the first judge in Texas.

For that, we've got to go a little further back to the 1820s.

Now, you'll recall that Stephen F. Austin settled 300 families on a land grant, referred to as Austin's colony.

Austin's first colonists began arriving in December 1821.

And for reference, the capital of Austin's colony was the town of San Felipe de Austin,

and you'll have to pardon my pronunciation.

Austin's colony was governed like other Mexican settlements of the time.

A town council, which was called an Ayantamiento, governed the settlement.

Again, please excuse my pronunciation.

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