Thomas Jefferson Rusk

(1803-1857) Born in South Carolina, Thomas Jefferson Rusk showed an early aptitude for the law, passing the bar at age twenty-one. He began to practice law in Georgia, where he married Mary F. Cleveland in 1827.

Rusk was so taken with Nacogdoches that he sent for his family and became a citizen of Mexico in 1835. Quickly becoming involved in the independence movement, he organized a group of Nacogdoches volunteers and joined Stephen F. Austin's army. The provisional government named him inspector general of the army. He signed the Texas Declaration of Independence as a delegate from Nacogdoches and was appointed secretary of war. Rusk fought with Sam Houston at the Battle of San Jacinto and was briefly commander in chief of the army of the Republic of Texas. After the war, Rusk was again appointed secretary of war and major general of the Texas Militia. Elected to the Republic of Texas Congress, he chaired the House Military Committee. In 1840, he retired from his position as chief justice of the State Supreme Court to return to a successful law practice in Nacogdoches, but he was called again to the militia in 1843 and was soon elected major general by the Congress. Returning home in June, Rusk focused his energies on the establishment of Nacogdoches University.

Following his term as president of the convention of 1845 to annex Texas to the United States, Rusk was elected to a U. S. Senate seat in 1846. He and Senator Sam Houston established the southwestern boundary of Texas, and he promoted construction of a transcontinental railroad route through Texas. Mary Rusk died of tuberculosis in 1856, and an ill and despondent T. J. Rusk took his own life in 1857. (1999).