Texas. Governor (1861-1863 : Lubbock)

Francis Richard Lubbock was governor of Texas from November 7, 1861 to November 5, 1863. Lubbock was born in South Carolina on October 16, 1815; he clerked in a hardware store and managed a cotton warehouse before he became a druggist in New Orleans in 1834. He followed his brother Tom to Texas in 1836, after the Battle of San Jacinto. He claimed to have sold the first barrel of flour and the first sack of coffee in the village of Houston. After clerking in the House of Representatives in the Second Congress of Texas, he was appointed comptroller of the Republic. He became the district clerk of Harris County in 1841, and bought a ranch near Harrisburg in 1846.

Lubbock was elected lieutenant governor in 1857, and governor in 1861. Among his actions were the mobilizing of a frontier regiment of cavalry against hostile Indians, the modest expansion of industrial resources, and the sale of U.S. bonds acquired in 1850 to help replenish an exhausted treasury. His interpretation of conscription laws made every able-bodied man between 16 and 60 years of age liable for military service. He did not run for re-election, preferring to join the Confederate Army as a lieutenant colonel in November 1863. In 1864 he joined Jefferson Davis' staff, and was captured with him in May 1865. Upon his release he returned to business in Houston and Galveston. He was tax collector in Galveston for three years, and state treasurer (1879-1891). As state treasurer, he was an active member of the Capitol Building Commission. He served under Governor James Hogg on the Board of Pardons before retiring at age 80. Lubbock wrote his autobiography Six Decades in Texas in 1900. He died in Austin on June 22, 1905.

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