South Carolina-born James O. Rice migrated to Texas by 1835 and served in the Texas Army during the War for Independence. In the early days of the Republic of Texas, he protected frontier settlements as part of a Texas Ranger company. On May 17, 1839, while commanding a volunteer force clashing with Mexican troops led by Manuel Flores on the North San Gabriel River, Rice captured vitally important documents related to the Cordova Rebellion against the Republic of Texas. He joined the Somervell and Mier Expeditions of 1842 and the Snively Expedition of 1843, and he also served in the Mexican War from 1846 to 1848. For his military service, he received several land bounties. When Williamson County was created in 1848, he was one of the commissioners named to select a site for the county seat. One of the county's largest landowners, Rice built his home on Brushy Creek about one mile west of here at a site then known as Blue Hill and later called Rice's Crossing. He ran a store and served as postmaster of the Blue Hill post office from 1849 to 1857, and for a short time he had a tanyard in Georgetown. Rice married Nancy D. Gilliland, who died in 1860, of an early Texas family, and they had four daughters. He is buried in the Sneed Family Cemetery near Austin.