Ector, Mathew Duncan, 1822-1879

General and judge Mathew Duncan Ector (1822-1879) was born to Hugh Walton and Dorothy (Duncan) Ector in Putnam County, Georgia. In the 1840s, Ector studied law at Greenville, Georgia; served one term in the Georgia Legislature; and married Louisia Phillips, who died in 1842. In 1850, he moved to Texas and the next year opened a law practice in Henderson, where he married Letitia M. Graham. In 1855, Ector became editor of the Henderson Democrat and a representative of Rusk County in the Texas Legislature. During the Civil War, he joined the Confederate Army, rising to the rank of brigadier general for Ector’s Brigade. Following the war and the death of his second wife in 1859, Ector married Sallie P. Chew in 1864 and resumed his Henderson legal practice in 1866. That year, he was elected Sixth District Judge of Texas, but General Joseph J. Reynolds removed Ector from office in 1867. He then moved to Marshall, where he opened a law practice with N. H. Wilson in 1868 and became Seventh District Judge of Texas. In 1875, Ector was elected to the Texas Court of Appeals, serving as the presiding judge from 1876 until his death in 1879.

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