RAINS, EMORY (1800–1878). Emory Rains, early legislator, was born in Warren County, Tennessee, on May 4, 1800. In 1826 he moved to Texas, where he first settled in the section of the Red River district that later became Lamar County. He subsequently moved to Shelby County, which he represented as senator in the Second and Third congresses of the republic and in the Convention of 1845. Among Rains's most important legislative accomplishments was his sponsorship of the Homestead Law in 1839. After annexation he continued to represent Shelby County in the House of the Second, Fourth, and Fifth legislatures. Sometime before 1859 he moved to Wood County; he represented that county in the Senate of the Eighth Legislature. Rains County, which he helped to survey in 1869, was established from Wood County on June 9, 1870, and named in his honor. Rains was married to Marana Anderson sometime before February 19, 1835, the date he received, as a married man, one league of land in Lorenzo de Zavala's colony. Emory and Marana had twelve children. Rains died at his home in Rains County on March 4, 1878, and was buried in the cemetery at Emory.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Galveston News, April 12, 1878. Louis Wiltz Kemp Papers, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Texas House of Representatives, Biographical Directory of the Texan Conventions and Congresses, 1832–1845 (Austin: Book Exchange, 1941). Homer S. Thrall, A Pictorial History of Texas (St. Louis: Thompson, 1879).
