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George A. Pattillo, early
Texas settler and political leader, was born in Georgia about
1796. He moved to Louisiana in 1819 and subsequently secured one
of the earliest land grants in what is now Jefferson County when
he moved to Texas in 1830. He served as a member of the General
Councilqv
from January 13 to March 11, 1836. He volunteered for military
duty and was en route to San Jacinto when the famous battle
there was fought.
Pattillo held a number of
public offices in Austin and in Southeast Texas. He served as
associate justice of Jefferson County in 1837 before holding the
position of justice of the peace in 1838. Although defeated in
the 1840 House race, he represented Jefferson County in the
House of Representatives of the Sixth Congress (1841-42) and was
senator from Jefferson and Jasper counties in the Seventh,
Eighth, and Ninth congresses of the republic. During this period
Pattillo was chairman of the Committee on Enrolled Bills and led
a successful fight against the repeal of the tariff. He was also
noted as an ardent annexationist.
After the annexationqv
of Texas, Pattillo became the first chief justice of Orange
County, in 1852-53. In 1861 he served as justice of the peace
for that county. Tax rolls of 1840 show that he had title to
more than 3,800 acres of land in Jefferson County and owned five
horses and five cattle. Toward the end of his life Pattillo
settled at Bunn's Bluff, on the Neches River north of Beaumont,
where he remained until his death in 1871.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: W. T.
Block, A History of Jefferson County, Texas, from Wilderness to
Reconstruction (M.A. thesis, Lamar University, 1974; Nederland,
Texas: Nederland Publishing, 1976). Texas House of
Representatives,
Biographical Directory of the Texan
Conventions and Congresses, 1832-1845
(Austin: Book Exchange, 1941).
Robert Wooster
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