Title:
Supreme Court dockets (circuit court period), 1840-1892
Description:
Records are dockets of the Supreme Court from the circuit court period, 1840-1892. Dockets function as a brief entry of the court proceedings, some also serving as a calendar of cases awaiting action in court. Dates of these dockets reflect the court terms, not the filing date of a case. The docket volumes, except for the first few, cover only a particular geographical term of the court (Austin, Galveston, or Tyler), sometimes covering more than one year.There are several types of dockets present: court dockets, bar dockets, a motion docket, and a docket of criminal cases. The court dockets (referred to as "dockets") are the most numerous and contain the case or application number, attorneys, parties, county, filing dates, and orders, both of the previous term and present term in many cases. In January 1841, a new numbering system was begun by the court. Any cases continued after January 1840 were given a new number; both the old and new numbers can be found in the earliest dockets for some cases. In many of these dockets, especially those created prior to the Civil war, M numbers are given as well for some cases. In 1944, M numbers were assigned to all cases from the period, becoming the case number of record.The bar dockets (1860-1862, 1869-1874) contain the case number, attorneys, parties, county, and filing dates. The only orders present are from those cases begun in a previous term, and such orders are present only in the later years. These dockets do not contain M numbers. The motion docket (1891-1892) gives the docket and application numbers, district, county, attorneys, parties, purpose (rehearing, to dismiss, etc.), date filed, and orders. The other docket is a docket of criminal cases from Austin, 1871-1874, containing the case number, parties, county, crime, and orders.Most of the dockets are not indexed, making it difficult to locate cases since the entries are arranged by district, then numerically within each section. Also, since M numbers are not always present, the original case number has little value. The direct and reverse M card file index in the Indexes and registers series provides the best access to the M case files.
Collection:
Texas Supreme Court records
Creator:
Texas. Supreme Court
Date range of creation:
1840 to 1892
Citation information:
(Identify the item), Supreme Court dockets (circuit court period), Dockets, Texas Supreme Court records. Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission.
Arrangement:
Dockets are arranged chronologically by year then further arranged by location of the court session, as received from the agency.
Size or duration:
22.22 cubic ft.
TARO URL:
https://txarchives.org/tslac/finding_aids/20169.xml