State Web Site

Higher Office(s) Served: Ambassador

Military Service: Army

War(s) Served:  Civil War

RICHARD BENNETT HUBBARD was born in Walton County, Georgia. He graduated in 1851 with distinguished honors from Mercer College in Macon, Georgia and from Harvard Law School in 1853. He went on to establish a private law practice in Tyler, Texas, and after campaigning for the election of James Buchanan as President, Buchanan appointed him U.S. District Attorney for the Western District of Texas in 1858. He resigned that position one year later to run successfully for the Texas House of Representatives. During the Civil War, he raised the Twenty-second Texas Regiment and rose to the rank of Colonel in the Confederate Army. He was elected Lieutenant Governor in 1873, and succeeded to the position of governor when Richard Coke resigned after being elected to the U.S. Senate. Hubbard completed the remainder of Coke's term, and then resumed his private law practice. He served as temporary chairman of the Democratic National Convention in 1884 and was U.S. minister to Japan from 1885 to 1889. He died in Tyler, Texas, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery.

Sources:

Sobel, Robert, and John Raimo, eds. Biographical Directory of the Governors of the United States, 1789-1978, Vol. 4. Westport, CT: Meckler Books, 1978. 4 vols.

The National Cyclopaedia of American Biography, Vol. 9. New York: James T. White & Company.

Texas State Library & Archives Commission

Governors of Texas, 1846-present