He came to Texas under somewhat hazy circumstances in the late 1820s. He made a name for himself and established a legacy that extends way beyond his colorful nickname. He organized the first three companies of Texas Rangers for the Republic of Texas and was a frontier judge who also served the Republic, and the state, as a senator and was a member of the Republic's Supreme Court. Other than that, he didn't accomplish very much.
The odd moniker comes from an illness he suffered as a teenager, when he came down with what he called "white swelling," but was most likely polio. After the illness left his right leg drawn back at the knee, he took to wearing a peg leg that extended from his right knee to the ground. A tailor sewed an extra piece of cloth to the knee of his trousers to cover the wooden leg and friends took to calling him Three-Legged Willie. The missing leg -- or extra leg depending on how you look at it -- did not prevent him from fighting with the Texas army at Gonzales and San Jacinto.
Early settler Noah Smithwick wrote of Williamson in his book "Evolution of a State." "To Judge Williamson, nature had been indeed lavish of her mental gifts, but as if repenting of her prodigality in that line, she later afflicted him with a grievous physical burdenhe would leave a court room over which he had just presided with all the grace and dignity of lord chief and justice, and within the hour be patting Juba for some nimble footed scape-grace to dance."
Smithwick, a blacksmith, was once awakened in the middle of the night by someone calling for him in the street. "O Smithwick; come here; here's a man with a broken leg." It was Three-Legged Willie, who had broken the wooden leg during a long night that included a lot of dancing. "I took the fractured limb to my shop and braced it up so that it was as good as new, and the judge went on his way rejoicing," Smithwick wrote.
Stories about Williamson abound in the state's history. He wasn't a man who could be bullied or easily fooled. One of the best-known incidents happened in Shelbyville, when Williamson was appointed to judge a mob of men not eager to be judged by Three-Legged Willie or anybody else. Willie called the court to order and read aloud a resolution penned by the mob. He then asked the said mob's lawyer to cite any law allowing such a proposal.
The lawyer produced a Bowie knife and laid it on the bench. "This is the law that governs here," the lawyer told Williamson.
Willie produced a long-barreled pistol and slammed it on the bench for emphasis. "This is the constitution that overrules it," he said. Thus, the resolution was rejected and court proceeded.
Willie sometimes had to hold court in the shade of a sprawling oak tree because a courthouse had burned or maybe wasn't yet there to begin with. One group of defendants tried the old ploy of escaping charges by burning the courthouse where the records of those charges were held. In at least that one instance, Willie just happened to have a duplicate copy of the charges in his pocket, probably right next to the pistol. Again, court proceeded.
In 1848, citizens in the Western end of a sprawling Milam County petitioned the legislature for a new county with offices closer to their settlements than Nashville-on-the Brazos. The legislators agreed to create a new county, but weren't sure what to call it. One story has it that when the bill to create the "County of San Gabriel" came before the state Senate, Williamson stood up and protested against having any more saints in Texas. The majority then voted to name the county for Williamson.
Another story connected to the naming of the county says legislators voted to name the town in Williamson's honor after he told a story on himself. When he was part of a survey team in the area, at a time when large buffalo herds still roamed there, he decided to chase down one of the beasts. Advised against it by his more prudent companions, Willie galloped his horse full stride in pursuit of one or more of the big shaggies.
The chase ended when the horse suddenly performed a feat of acrobatics that separated Willie from the horse. The four-legged horse recovered from the somersault and continued in pursuit of the buffalo, but Three-Legged Willie was stuck; every time he tried to stand, the leg and crutch became more hopelessly mired in the mud where he and the horse had taken the tumble. He stayed there until his companions came for him some time later.
After he lost a race for Congress in 1850, Williamson retired to Independence with his wife Mary Jane and at least a few of their seven children. Williamson declined rapidly in retirement, especially after Mary Jane died in 1858. He died in December of the following year and is buried at the state cemetery in Austin.
