Henry Millard

Millard's Texas life ran through institutions. He became a charter member of the Masonic Grand Lodge of Texas in 1837 and served as its secretary in 1840 and 1841. In 1835, the year he reached Texas, he voted on November 13 for the new municipality named Jefferson, and a family tradition says he named it for a brother-in-law, though the Handbook of Texas biography finds too little evidence. He served as Jefferson County's chief justice from 1838 to 1840, moved to Galveston in January 1842 and commanded a militia regiment there.

What the plaque says

Henry Millard A native of Saratoga County, New York, Henry Millard moved to Missouri with his family while still a child. As a young man he moved to Natchez, Mississippi, where in 1826 he married Mary Warren Beaumont. While living in Natchez they became the parents of two sons, and Millard opened a mercantile business with his brother-in-law, Franklin Beaumont. the family relocated to New Orleans in 1832, and Millard went into partnership in a drugstore with Samuel Mason. After his partner's death in 1833 and his wife's death in 1834, Millard migrated to Texas in 1835. with his new partner, J. P. Pulsifer, he bought land along the Neches River between the settlements of Santa Anna and Tevis Bluff. He laid out a townsite and named it Beaumont, his wife's maiden name. Embracing the political life of his new homeland, Millard served as a delegate to the Consultation of 1835 and, as a Lt. Colonel in the Texas Army, commanded infantry at the Battle of San Jacinto. He later served as chief justice, alderman, and justice of the peace in Beaumont and Jefferson County, as well as tax assessor in Galveston after his move there in 1842. He died in Galveston in August 1844 and was buried there in the Episcopal Cemetery. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• McFaddin-Ward House — 1.2 mi
  A Beaux-Arts Colonial Revival mansion finished in 1906 and lived in by one family for 75 years, with free guided tours of three furnished floors, the carriage house and gardens.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 3.5 mi
  A re-created oil boomtown on the Lamar University campus, with a derrick, period shops, a 1941 granite monument and an optional re-enactment of the January 1901 Lucas gusher.
• Village Creek State Park — 12 mi
  A 2,466-acre state park on one of the few free-flowing creeks in Texas, with a launch for the Village Creek Paddling Trail, boat rentals and sandy-upland trails in the Big Thicket.
• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 17 mi
  Port Arthur's regional museum in a former bank building: fossils, Native Americans, the petroleum story, a 125-foot history mural and Halls of Fame for musicians, athletes and artists.

More markers nearby

• William G. "Bill" Hall — steps away
• Beaumont — steps away
• Nancy Tevis — steps away
• Beaumont: Lumber Mill City of the Nineteenth Century — steps away