David Ervin Lawhon was born in Tennessee on June 15, 1811. While very young he learned the printing trade and worked in some of the principal cities of the United States. He came to Nacogdoches, Texas, in November 1835 in answer to pleas for volunteers for the Texas Army and was pressed into service publishing the Texean and Emigrant’s Guide with essential war proclamations. He also printed handbills, patriotic songs, and legal documents, and his newspaper was one of several printed in Texas during the War for Independence in 1836. In 1839 he moved to what is now Jefferson County and engaged in cattle ranching, served as captain of a ranger company, and was the county’s Chief Justice during the days of the Republic of Texas. He moved to Bastrop County in 1861, where he tried farming, then moved to Williamson County, where he died on February 14, 1884. As a newspaper publisher and printer for the army of the revolution from 1835 to 1836, an Indian fighter, frontiersman, and judge, he contributed much to the early development of Texas. In 1840 David Lawhon married Nancy Carr, a daughter of one of Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred settlers, and their eleven children carried on their pioneering spirit and tradition.