Texas History Notebook

Samuel Taliferro Rayburn was born January 6, 1882 on a farm near Kingston, Roane County, Tennessee to William Marion Rayburn and Martha Clementine Waller Rayburn. He was the seventh of their eleven children. His father, William Marion Rayburn, had served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. The Rayburns were a farming family. Sam was five years old when the family moved to Fannin County, Texas in 1887, settling on a forty acre farm where they raised cotton. He received his education in Texas. There was not enough money to pay for all of the siblings’ schooling and the family story was that Sam was sent off to college with $25 cash from his family. Rayburn enrolled at East Texas Normal College (later known as East Texas State and Texas A&M University-Commerce) and worked his way through the early days of his schooling by sweeping floors for $3 per month. While he was a student, he began to work as a teacher. Upon completing his Bachelor of Science degree, he enrolled in the law school at University of Texas in Austin. He did not earn a law degree, as far as we can determine, but upon completion of his studies, he was admitted to the state bar of Texas in 1908. His political career had begun two years earlier when he won an election to the Texas House of Representatives. Rayburn served two more terms before being elected in 1912 as a United States Representative.

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