The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 6, July 1902 - April, 1903 Page: 334

334 1eas Historical Association Quarterly.

QUERIES AND ANSWERS.
Could any one inform me through THE QUARTERLY how Madi-
son County, and the town of Madisonville came to be so named?
Could any one give a sketch of some man of prominence con-
nected with the early history of Madison County?
(MRS.) J. A. B. WALTHALL,
Willow Hole, Texas.
The above question was referred to Judge W. D. Wood of San
Marcos, who answers as follows:
Madison County was organized by act of the Texas legislature,
January 27, 1853. It was named in honor of President James
Madison; and the county being so named, it was considered proper
and appropriate to name the county seat Madisonville, to further
accentuate the honor intended this illustrious man and president.
By act of the first legislature that assembled in Texas, after
annexation, on the 6th of April, 1846, the counties of Grimes and
Walker were organized out of the territory of Montgomery County.
Not quite seven years after this, the new county of Madison1 was
organized out of the territory of Grimes and Walker Counties, and
a small portion of Leon. The writer was at the sale of the town
lots in Madisonville, in the summer of 1853. The public square
or court house square, of the town, was located within two hun-
dred yards of the residence of Job Collard, who had settled there in
the forties, while the 'territory was a part of Montgomery County.
He was a useful and exemplary citizen, a man of note in his section.
He belonged to a numerous and much respected family, residents of
old Montgomery County, who were active and leading spirits in
matters civil and military. Judge Collard, recently deceased at
Austin, a member of the civil court of appeals of the Third Dis-
'The Congress of the Republic, on February 2, 1842, created the counties
of Madison and Hamilton out of the territory of Montgomery County.
Whatever became of these two counties I do not know. [Mr. Batts ex-
plains in his article on Defunct Counties of Tecas that Madison was one of
the "judicial" counties whose creation was provided for by an act that
was held by the courts unconstitutional, because those counties were not
given representation. See THE QUARTERLY, I 88.-EDITOR QUARTERLY].