Robert McAlpin Williamson, later to be known as Three Legged Willie, was born in Clarke County, Georgia in 1804 or 1806. He was the son of Peter B. and Ann (McAlpin) Williamson. His mother died shortly after his birth and Robert and a brother were reared by their grandfather Micajah Williamson, who had served in the Continental Army during the revolution of 1776.
 
Willie was raised in the town of Milledgeville which was the state capital of Georgia during that time. He had a privileged life, attended the best schools in the area and grew up as a member of a prominent family. And an extended family consisting of numerous lawyers, the state's governor, and a future justice of the United States Supreme Court.
 
Williamson became ill with "white swelling" at the age of fifteen. It later known as tubercular arthritis, a tubercular infection of the bone that usually affected children. It caused a painful swelling of weightbearing joints, and resulted in deformities of the lower extremities. He was confined to his bed for months. His right leg became paralyzed below the knee, and when he recovered he built a shortened crutch-like device, strapped it to his knee. He, covered the peg with an extra pants leg, and became known to friends as “Three-Legged Willie.”
 
After passing the bar at about nineteen years of age, he practiced law in Georgia for about a year. In June of 1827 he fought a duel over the affections of a woman and after wounding his opponent, he fled to Texas. In Texas, he settled in San Felipe de Austin, where he became friends with Stephen F. Austin and William B. Travis.
 
After learning Spanish in less than a year, Robert started a law practice and when Texans began to complain about Mexican abuses of colonial rule, he was one of the first signers of convention to protest to Mexico. Robert and Godwin B. Cotton, started “The Cotton Plant” newspaper in 1829 and Robert became the first prosecuting attorney for San Felipe shortly after. He later went on to edit two other newspapers, The Texas Gazette and The Mexican Citizen.
 
Despite his disability, he was a capable horseman and a skilled marksman. He fought Comanche Indians on the frontier and fought the Mexican Army at the battle of Gonzales and in the battle of San Jacinto. He reportedly fought wearing a coonskin cap with nine tails attached.
 
He made an early appeal for the Texas colonists to resist Mexican tyranny. At Anahuac in 1832 he forced Juan Bradburn to release his imprisoned friends Patrick Jack and William B. Travis who later became the commander at the battle of the Alamo.

He attended “The Consultation” as a delegate from Mina (later known as Bastrop) and after the provisional government was established he was commissioned as a Major on November 29, 1835. His orders were to organize a corps of rangers. He participated in the Battle of Gonzales and the battle of San Jacinto as a part of William H. Smith's 2nd REG. "J" cavalry company. His name appeared on the original muster roll in error, as W. W. Williamson. He received 640 acres for participating in the battle of San Jacinto.
 
On December 16, 1836, Williamson was elected judge of the Third Judicial District by the First Congress of the republic. This automatically made him a member of the Supreme Court. There was no suitable building in which to hold court proceedings, in the town of Columbus. It had been burned during the Runaway Scrape. So, in the first term of District Court, Republic of Texas, it was convened by the Honorable R. M. Williamson, under a large oak tree next to the lot where the Colorado County Courthouse would later be built in April 1837. The harsh and difficult life of a circuit judge didn’t seem to have bothered Judge Williamson.
 
The Third District of the Republic of Texas included six counties and the judge and circuit lawyers rode the circuit on horseback during all kinds of weather. They stayed where ever lodgings where available and camped out when lodgings were not available.
 
Williamson often entertained at evening gatherings after court sessions, playing the banjo and singing. He sang the old Negro spirituals he had learned during his childhood in Georgia. He also was known for pattin' juba, an African-American percussion style of rhythmic hand-clapping, thigh-patting, and foot stomping prevalent among slave populations; it was probably another talent he had learned during his childhood in Georgia.
 
Numerous stories have been told about Williamson who was full of character. One of the most famous of these stories involved the first court session held in Shelby County. The region was known for its lawlessness when two rival vigilante groups battled for control during the violent years of the Regulator-Moderator War.
 
As court was about to convene, a man stood before the court and made a motion that the local citizens had declared court should not be held. When Williamson asked the grounds for his request, the man reportedly plunged a Bowie knife into the table that served as the judge's dais, and stated in effect, "This is the law that governs here." Judge Williamson rose to his feet, drew his pistol, laid it on the table next to the knife,
and replied, "If this is your law, this is the constitution that overrules it." The trial proceeded without further interruption, and this moment in Texas legal history provided subject matter for a painting that has hung for many years in the Texas State Bar building in Austin.
 
Williamson married Mary Jane Edwards, daughter of Gustavus E. Edwards of Austin County, on April 21, 1837 after the close of his first circuit, They were the parents of seven children. Williamson resigned his position on the court in January 1839. The following year he was elected to represent Washington County in Congress. He served in the House in the Fifth, Sixth, and Seventh Congress, in the Senate in the Eighth Congress, and in the House again in the Ninth Congress. (His Senate seat in the Eighth Congress was contested, and he eventually lost the seat.)
 
Williamson retired to his farm near Independence after his defeat in the race for Congress in 1850, where he devoted himself to the education of his children and the preparations of materials for writing a history of events in Texas leading up to the Texas Revolution. He ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1851. In 1857 an attack of illness affected his mental brilliance, which was further impaired by the death of his wife in 1858. From these combined shocks his mind never entirely recovered.
 
He died at the home of his father-in-law in Wharton on December 22, 1859.
 
He is buried in the Texas State Cemetery.
 
Williamson County was named for him.
 
Compiled from Wikipedia, Handbook of Texas On-Line, Shelby County Texas History, Texas Escapes, Texas State Cemetery and other sources by John “Corky” Daut, P.M. Waller Masonic Lodge #808, Contributing Editor to the Grand Lodge of Texas History Committee.