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RABB, ANDREW (1793-1869). Andrew Rabb, Old Three Hundred^qv colonist, legislator, and first chief justice of Fayette and Bastrop counties, son of Mary (Smalley) and William Rabb,^qv was born in Pennsylvania in 1793. The family moved to Illinois in 1804, to the Red River in Arkansas in 1818, and to the Colorado River in Texas in 1823. Rabb and one of his brothers cleared land on the west side of the river above the site of present La Grange in 1823 and 1824, but because of Indian depredations they moved down the Colorado to locate permanently in the Egypt settlement. As one of Stephen F. Austin's^qv colonists, Rabb received title to 1½ sitios of land in what is now Wharton County on August 10, 1824. His land was surveyed by Rawson Alley^qv before January 1825. The census of March 1826 classified Rabb as a farmer and stock raiser with a wife, Margaret (Ragsdale), two sons, and a daughter. In 1827 Rabb signed resolutions declaring allegiance to the Mexican government and condemning the Fredonian Rebellion.^qv He represented the Fayette County area in the Convention of 1833^qv and was nominated as chief justice of Mina County in December 1836. He petitioned for the organization of Fayette County in 1837 and represented the new county in the Third Congress of the Republic of Texas.^qv He was secretary to the board of trustees of Rutersville College^qv in 1843, the year he was elected to the Eighth Congress. He died in 1869.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Eugene C. Barker, ed., The Austin Papers (3 vols., Washington: GPO, 1924-28). Lester G. Bugbee, "The Old Three Hundred: A List of Settlers in Austin's First Colony," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 1 (October 1897). Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Founders and Patriots of the Republic of Texas (Austin, 1963-). Charles Adams Gulick, Jr., Harriet Smither, et al., eds., The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar (6 vols., Austin: Texas State Library, 1920-27; rpt., Austin: Pemberton Press, 1968). J. H. Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 6-7 (January, April, July 1903). Leonie Rummel Weyand and Houston Wade, An Early History of Fayette County (La Grange, Texas: La Grange Journal, 1936).

The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/RR/fra3.html (accessed December 1, 2008).

(NOTE: "s.v." stands for sub verbo, "under the word.")

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Last Updated: January 18, 2008
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