PATTILLO, GEORGE A. (ca. 1796-1871). 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
