Joseph Herrington

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker on Joseph Herrington tells it, as best I can put it into words. Now, imagine Angelina County in 1846. Brand new.

Fresh-organized, no roads to speak of, no courthouse, no anything yet. Somebody's got to step up and make sense of all that East Texas wilderness, draw some lines, pick a place to call the seat of government. The legislature looked around and appointed six men to do exactly that.

Joseph Herrington, an Alabama native not yet old enough to have many gray hairs, was one of them. He and those other five men set the boundary lines and settled on Marion as the first seat of government. And then, that same year, the county turned right around and elected him their first chief justice.

Their first county judge. At twenty-two years old. Now, that is a weight to put on a young man's shoulders.

And Joseph Herrington, born in 1823, carried it not once, not twice, but five terms. Five. During those years he worked on improved trade routes and got county school districts established.

The kind of work that doesn't make for tall tales around a campfire, maybe, but the kind that shapes a place for generations. The marker calls those accomplishments vital to the area's growth, and it's hard to argue the point. He was an active Mason, lived until 1889, and was buried right here in the Herrington Family Cemetery, the county he helped build all around him.

Six men drew the lines. One of them drew his last breath on the very ground he helped define.

What the marker says

When Angelina County was organized in 1846, Alabama native Joseph Herrington (1823 - 89) was one of six men appointed by the legislature who set boundary lines and selected Marion as the first seat of government. That same year, at the age of 22, he was elected the county's first chief justice (county judge). His accomplishments during five terms in the office, including improved trade routes and the establishment of county school districts, were vital to the area's growth. An active Mason, he was buried here in the Herrington Family Cemetery. (1982)