Madison Lodge No. 126, A. F. & A. M.

The lodge's first tiler, Charles Saxon, packed a good deal of Orange County's early offices into one life. Born near Meridian, Mississippi, in 1820, he reached Jasper County in 1842, served in the Mexican War in 1846 and later ran a shingle yard on the Sabine. He took his Masonic degrees at DeWitt Clinton Lodge in Jasper in June 1852 and petitioned the Grand Lodge for a Madison lodge that year. He sat on the first county commissioners court and was sheriff from June 30, 1852, to August 1, 1853. He died on January 26, 1919, at 98.

What the plaque says

Madison Lodge No. 126, A. F. & A. M. Hugh Ochiltree (1820-91), George A. Pattillo (1796-1871), and other leading citizens organized this lodge on April 30, 1853. Col. Ochiltree had come to Texas in 1839, fought in the Mexican War, and helped develop the town of Madison (Now Orange). Pattillo settled in the county in 1830, was a local official of the Mexican colony of Texas, a republic of Texas Congressman, and a Veteran public leader. The lodge was chartered under the name by which the town of Orange was known from 1842 to 1858. Officers for the first year were William Smith, worshipful master; Pattillo, Senior Warden; Ochiltree, Junior Warden; A. H. Reading, Secretary; I. H. Hutchings, Treasurer; S. Fairchilds, Senior Deacon; N. Smith, Junior Deacon; Charles Saxon, Tiler. Madison lodge sponsored the town's first public school, 1854-1879, providing housing on the ground floor of the lodge hall--where church services were also held for a number of years. In 1865, a hurricane destroyed the original lodge building. A second was erected in 1878. The present building, with banquet room, offices, and other appointments, was completed in August 1926. (1976) SUPPLEMENTAL PLATE: Moved from second lodge site at 5th and Elm after sale of property to new, but continuing, location of original Madison Lodge #126, A. F. & A. M.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Shangri La Botanical Gardens and Nature Center — 1.7 mi
  More than 250 acres on Adams Bayou, begun by H. J. Lutcher Stark in 1937, with garden rooms, a cypress-tupelo swamp, a heronry blind and free pontoon tours in season.
• Stark Museum of Art — 2.3 mi
  A white-marble museum in Orange built by the Stark Foundation and opened in 1978, holding Western art, American Indian art, Audubon's Birds of America and Steuben glass, free to enter.
• Museum of the Gulf Coast — 18 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.
• Spindletop-Gladys City Boomtown Museum — 19 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.

More markers nearby

• First Baptist Church of West Orange — 1.5 mi
• First National Bank of Orange — 1.7 mi
• West End Park — 1.9 mi
• St. Paul's Episcopal Church — 1.9 mi