A veteran of the War of 1812, Georgia native George Alexander Pattillo (1796-1871) migrated to this area in the early 1830s. He served on the local Committee of Correspondence created by the Convention of 1832 and on the General Council of the provisional government established by the Consultation of 1835. During the Texas Revolution of 1836, Pattillo, who had earlier received a Mexican land grant, joined with other area settlers to aid the Texas Army. Arriving at San Jacinto the day after the decisive battle, he was commissioned by Texas President David G. Burnet to direct the formation of Jefferson County, which included this area. He also became an associate justice for the new county and was a postmaster for the settlement of Pattillo's station, later the Terry community of central Orange County. In the early 1840s Pattillo served this area as a Representative and a Senator in the Republic of Texas Congress, where he actively supported annexation to the United States. In 1852 he was elected the first judge of the newly-formed Orange County. An active Masonic leader in southeast Texas, Pattillo died in 1871 and was buried in a family plot at Bunn's Bluff on the Neches River, where he had lived since 1844.