Palestine High School Alumni Association

Thomas Benton Greenwood

07 / 02 / 1872  –  03 / 26 / 1946

Thomas Benton Greenwood, attorney and state Supreme Court justice, the son of Thomas Benton and Lucy H. (Gee) Greenwood, of Palestine, Texas, was born on July 2, 1872, in Louisburg, North Carolina.

After graduation from the Palestine public schools he attended the University of Texas from approximately 1888 to 1890. Thereafter he read law in his father’s office, was licensed in 1893, and practiced with his father until the senior partner’s death in 1900. After 1900 he practiced alone, although he was often associated with his younger brother, A. G. Greenwood.

In 1908 he married Mary Ezell of Palestine; they had no children. Greenwood was a member of the Southern Presbyterian Church. He died in Austin on March 26, 1946, and was buried in the Texas State Cemetery.

From 1907 to 1911 he served as a regent of the University of Texas. His statewide prominence began with a celebrated law case, Anderson County v. I&GN Railway Company (1912-18), in which he helped block removal of the railway company’s shops and general offices from Palestine to Houston.

On April 1, 1918, Greenwood was appointed associate justice of the Supreme Court of Texas; thereafter he was elected and continuously reelected without opposition until he relinquished his office on December 31, 1934. He returned to law practice, this time at Austin in association with former governor Daniel J. Moodyqv and J. B. Robertson. That association continued until Greenwood’s death.

Greenwood’s judicial opinions in the relatively new and developing field of oil and gas law constitute much of today’s decisional law in the same area. He was a member of the Texas Bar Association, its successor, the State Bar of Texas,qv and the American Bar Association; his committee work for these organizations contributed notably to modernizing the administration of justice. He held an honorary LL.D. degree from Austin College at Sherman.