 Chambers continued to work as a surveyor in the 1840s while also engaging in land speculation . By 1850 , he was promoted to district surveyor ; he had , by then , acquired 10 @,@ 000 acres of land in Navarro and Johnson counties . He devoted some of the land to farming , but also donated some lots to Johnson County for the erection of the county seat , in Cleburne . He became a lawyer in 1860 , but never developed a sizable law practice . Chambers married three times : first in 1852 to Susan Wood , who died the next year ; secondly in 1854 to Emma Montgomery , who died in childbirth the next year ; and finally in 1861 to Harriet Killough . Chambers had no children who survived infancy with the first two wives , but with his third wife he would have three children : Mary , Patrick , and Isabella . 
