A petition was circulated on September 19, 1852, to carve a new county from Navarro County. Things moved quickly as Governor Peter Hansbrough Bell called a special session of the legislature to deal with frontier problems; a bill to divide Navarro County was signed on February 7, 1853. Hill County was named for Dr. George Washington Hill,qv who had served as President Sam Houston'sqv secretary of war and who had been elected to the state legislature from Navarro County in 1851. An election of county officials was held on May 14, 1853, in Lexington on Jack's Branch, currently Union Bluff. A special session of the commissioners' court was called on August 23, 1853, to select the county seat. Another special session was called on September 24 to survey the town of Hillsborough; town lots went on sale November 1. C. N. Brooks, the county clerk and justice of the peace, built the first courthouse, which was twelve feet square and consisted of elm poles around a dirt floor. A second courthouse was built in 1854, at a cost of $200. In the same year, post office rules changed, and the town's name became spelled as Hillsboro.