Hicks, Archibald W. Overton (1816–1907)

Archibald W. Overton Hicks, lawyer and jurist, was born in Cannon County, Tennessee, on November 10, 1816. He moved to Shelbyville, Texas, in 1838 and began the practice of law. He was elected chief justice of Shelby County on April 10, 1842, and representative of Shelby County to the Convention of 1845. He married Margaret Caroline Hicks during the 1840s, and they had at least nine children. Hicks was judge of the Fifth Judicial District of Texas from 1852 to 1861 and reported the ownership of one slave in 1860. On May 23, 1861, he enlisted as a private in Capt. Daniel M. Short's company of the Third Texas Cavalry, C.S.A. He reenlisted in 1863 under Capt. H. A. Harris and again on March 18, 1864, in Capt. J. P. Renfro's cavalry company of Texas State Troops. At the end of the Civil War he moved to Shreveport, Louisiana, where he practiced law until his death on April 29, 1907. He was buried in the Oakland Cemetery at Shreveport.