Associate Justice, Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas, 1841-1844
Patrick Churchill Jack was born in Wilkes County, Georgia in 1808. Details of his early years remain obscure. By 1827 he was practicing law in Jefferson County, Alabama, and in 1830 he arrived in Texas.
In 1831 Jack was given title to one-fourth of a league of land in Grimes County, part of Stephen F. Austin's second colony. He became the law partner of Texas revolutionary leader William B. Travis in Anahuac, at Trinity Bay on the Gulf of Mexico. Jack and Travis were imprisoned briefly in 1832 when they attempted to secure the return of escaped slaves who had taken refuge with the Mexicans. The arrests precipitated the Anahuac disturbances and, ultimately, the Texas revolution. Jack took part in the conventions of 1832 and 1833 and, following his move to Brazoria Municipality, served in the House of Representatives of the Second Congress of the Republic from 1837 to 1838. Jack was appointed district attorney for the First Judicial District in 1840 and the following year he was appointed district judge for the Sixth Judicial District, automatically making him an associate justice of the supreme court.
Jack, who had married in 1838, died of yellow fever in Houston on August 4, 1844 at the approximate age of thirty-six. He was buried three times: first in Houston, then Galveston, and finally, in 1942, at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin.
Baker, DeWitt Clinton.
A Texas Scrap Book Made up of the History, Biography and Miscellany of Texas and Its People 267 (Austin, Texas: The Steck Co., 1935).Ericson, Joe E.
Judges of the Republic of Texas (1836-1846) 154 (Dallas, Texas: Taylor Publishing Co., 1980).
Texas State Cemetery, Patrick Jack (visited July 5, 2006).
http://www.cemetery.state.tx.us/pub/user_form.asp?step=1&pers_id=16Kemp, L. W. Jack, Patrick Churchill,
Handbook of Texas Online (last updated June 6, 2001). http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/JJ/fja1.html