Philip Minor Cuny (Cuney), soldier, plantation owner, and legislator, the son of Richard Edmond and Tabitha (Wells) Cuney, was born of Swiss descent in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, in 1808. After death of his first wife in 1834, he moved to Texas around 1840 and settled in Austin County, where he took up farming. In 1842 he married Eliza Ware; they had three children. Cuney, a Whig, was elected to the House of Representatives of the Republic of Texas in 1843. He became a prosperous cotton planter and, with Oliver Jones, was Austin County delegate to the Convention of 1845, which voted for annexation to the United States. On July 13, 1846, Cuney was elected to the state Senate and represented Austin and Fort Bend counties in the First and Second legislatures until 1848. On February 22, 1848, he was elected a state delegate to the national Democratic convention in Baltimore. In 1851 he was a candidate for the state Senate. On his plantation, Sunnyside, twelve miles southeast of Hempstead on Iron Creek, Cuney had 2,000 acres and 105 slaves by 1850. Among them was Adeline Stuart, who bore him eight children and whom he eventually set free. Among their sons was Norris Wright Cuney, who became a prominent politician in Galveston. On September 26, 1851, Cuney married Adeline Spurlock, daughter of James Dixon and Eliza (Tippet) Spurlock, also of Austin County. Cuney died at his Austin County plantation, Sunnyside, on January 8, 1866. He was a member of the Texas Veterans Association.

Note: First wife, Carolina Scott, married September 1833, died July 1834, Rapides Parish, Louisiana.

Source: Texas Historical Association, Handbook of Texas Online, Thomas W. Cutrer.

Recommended: A Southern Family in White and Black, The Cuneys of Texas, Douglas Hales, Texas A&M University Press, College Station, Texas, 2003. ISBN 1-5844-200-3