TEXAS SUPREME COURT HISTORICAL SOCIETY

law firm partnership with his father and Judge John Scott, 8as reflected in the advertisement they placed in the first,January 9, 1840 issue of The Morning Star, a newspaperin Houston. 9In 1841, at the age of twenty-two, after his father’spassing, Peter Gray was appointed by Sam Houston tosucceed Col. Gray as district attorney, a position in whichhe served until Texas was admitted to the Union in 1846. 10Coinciding with his service as district attorney, he wonelection in 1841 as a city alderman. 11 Gray also won electionto the Seventh District Court (now the Eleventh DistrictCourt), where he served until the outbreak of the Civil War. 12Chief Justice Oran Roberts referred to Gray as “the very bestdistrict judge upon the Texas bench.” 13Judge Peter Gray’s portrait in theEleventh Judicial District Court of Harris County.Photo by David A. Furlow.At a Houston Bar Association banquet in 1910,Judge W. Key Hamblen described Judge Gray as “one ofthe chiefs among the intellingencers of that day. He wasaccomplished, educated in all the refinements as well asin all the substantials of the profession; so discriminating,so penetrating, that no proposition of law was presentedto him that he did not see; so absolutely honest that hisand 374 n.6. Col. Gray’s son, Allen C. Gray, described their office as “a little red house, one story with two rooms.… [Col. Gray’s]office was in front and in the rear my brother and I and several other boys were taught by the First Episcopal clergyman who came toHouston, Reverend Mr. Chapman. Afterwards my father moved his office around on Courthouse Square….” See Kelly, “Peter Gray,”Houston Lawyer, 29-30.8John Scott was from North Carolina, where he had served as a state representative and solicitor general of the state. See James L.Haley, The Texas Supreme Court: A Narrative History, 1836-1986 (Austin: Univ. of Tex. Press, 2013) 24.9The earliest reference to Gray’s practice of law appears in the diary his mother, Millie Gray, kept of her family’s move from Virginiato Houston. In her Sunday, January 5, 1840 entry, she noted that Judge Scott was at her home and that he, Col. Gray, and Gray hadentered into a partnership of law. The Thursday, January 9, 1840 ad in the The Morning Star (not January 7, 1840, as mentioned insome sources) reads as follows:LAW NOTICE—The subscribers have associated in the practice of law under the firm of Scott & Gray. One of them may alwaysbe found at the office of W. F. Gray, City of Houston. Their united attention, when necessary, will be given to business entrustedto them.W. Fairfax Gray.John Scott.Peter Gray.See The Morning Star (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 1, No. 224, Ed. 1, Thurs., Jan. 9, 1840, http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth79998/m1/3/?q=Gray/: accessed July 16, 2015, Univ. of N. Tex. Libs., The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu, crediting Dolph Briscoe Ctr. for Am. Hist., Austin, Tex.; cf. Freeman, Baker Botts, 10. Col. Gray passed away from pneumoniaon April 16, 1841. Judge Scott passed away on June 4, 1842. After Scott’s passing, Peter Gray continued the practice.10See Cutrer, “Peter Gray,” Handbook of Texas Online; Haley, Narrative History, 90.11See Freeman, Baker Botts, 11; Kirkland, Captain Baker, 46.12Gray’s portrait now hangs in the Eleventh District Court of Harris County, the successor court to the courts in which Gray, Judge John Scott,and Judge James A. Baker were all judges. All three worked at the firm now known as Baker Botts, LLP. See Freeman, Baker Botts, 9.13See Kelly, “Peter Gray,” Houston Lawyer, 31; Johnston, Houston, 57. See also Tarlton L. Lib., “Peter W. Gray (1819–1874),” Justicesof Texas 1836–1986, http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/justices/profile/view/40, accessed July 16, 2015.26