Kone, Edward Reeves (1848–1933)

Edward Reeves Kone, son of Samuel R. and Rebecca (Pitts) Kone, was born on March 15, 1848, in Montgomery County, Texas. The family moved to the Stringtown neighborhood in Hays County about 1855. Kone clerked in a store in San Marcos and worked as a cattle driver, then began the study of law at Coronal Institute. He was appointed county attorney before he reached the age of twenty-one and before he was licensed to practice law in 1869. For three years he was a law partner of William O. Hutchinson. Kone served briefly as sheriff of Hays County during Reconstruction. In 1872 he married Lucinda H. Martin of Fayette County. Four of the seven children born to them survived. Kone was county judge from 1878 to 1892 and was reelected to that office in 1894. In 1904 he was unsuccessful as a candidate for United States congressman-at-large. Governor T. M. Campbell appointed him commissioner of agriculture in August 1908. He was assistant commissioner of agriculture from 1914 to 1920, when he became corporation judge for the city of Austin. He was city judge when he died on January 30, 1933, in Austin. Kone was a lifelong Democrat and a Methodist.