The Fred Parks Law Library of South Texas College of Law is pleased to announce that three pieces of antique furniture, formerly used in the house of Joseph C. Hutcheson, a prominent late 19th century Houston attorney for fifty years, and the childhood home of the first Dean of South Texas College of Law, have recently been donated to the library by the descendants of Joseph C. Hutcheson living in California.

Joseph C. Hutcheson was born in Virginia in 1842, graduated from Randolph-Macon College in 1861, and then enlisted in the Confederate forces during the Civil War, serving under General Stonewall Jackson, where he rose to the rank of Captain. After the war, Captain Hutcheson entered the law school of the University of Virginia, graduating in 1866. He then moved to Anderson, Grimes County, Texas, where his older brother, John William Hutcheson, had settled before the Civil War.

John William Hutcheson became a prominent attorney in Grimes County, and was a member of the Texas Secession Convention in 1861, before he entered the Civil War and was killed in battle in 1862. Joseph C. Hutcheson came to Grimes County in 1866 to close out his brother’s estate and to take over his deceased brother’s law practice.

Joseph C. Hutcheson moved to Houston in 1874 and continued his practice of law. He was a member of the Seventeenth Texas Legislature in 1880, where he drafted the bill that created the University of Texas. Hutcheson was elected in 1892 to the House of Representatives for the Fifty-third and Fifty-fourth U.S. Congresses, but declined to run for a third term. Along with his successor, Congressman Tom Ball, Hutcheson is credited with helping to get federal appropriations to greatly improve the Port of Houston, which started Houston on its rise to becoming the most important city in Texas.

After leaving Congress, Captain Hutcheson continued the practice of law with his son, Joseph C. Hutcheson, Jr., and others until his death in 1924. J. C. Hutcheson, Jr., was Mayor of Houston in 1917, when he was appointed to the Federal Bench, serving until 1964. Judge Hutcheson was also one of the founders, an Instructor, served on the college’s Board and was the first Dean of South Texas College of Law, 1923-1931.

The donated items are two glass-front cabinets and a large dinner table, which were all built circa. 1870-1880, including one cabinet that bears the stamp of “Wm. Schmidt, Dealer in Furniture & General House Furnishing Goods, Houston, Texas.” After Captain Hutcheson’ death in 1924, Dr. Allen C. Hutcheson, a brother of J. C. Hutcheson, Jr., inherited the furniture and it eventually ended up in California.

The donor is Marilyn (Mrs. Sterling) Hutcheson of La Jolla, California. The donation was facilitated by Joanne Seale Wilson, J. C. Hutcheson, Jr.’s granddaughter, who lives in the Houston area. The furniture is now displayed in the DeGraw Exhibits Area on the second floor of the Fred Parks Law Library.

* For more information, please contact Mark Lambert, Special Collections & Government Documents Librarian, The Fred Parks Law Library, South Texas College of Law, 1303 San Jacinto Street, Houston, Texas, at 713.646.1720, or mlambert@stcl.edu.