Chapter VI: A History of Jefferson County, Texas

Early Town-Building and Government

By W. T. Block

As the echoes of cannonading faded, the citizens of Jefferson County banded together to exploit their newly won freedom. There were forests to fell and fields to harvest, but commerce had ground to a halt. Civil chaos prevailed rather than such orderly government that would record marriages, issue land titles, or maintain the peace. The first order of the day was to institute the necessary functions of government from the local to the republic level.

In September 1836, the county’s citizens went to the polls to vote for their first elected president and legislature and to approve a constitution and a referendum on annexation.¹ Residents of Jefferson County chose two signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence to represent them in the First Texas Congress. Claiborne West, the postmaster and merchant at Jefferson, was elected to the lower house of the legislature. Dr. Stephen H. Everett of Jasper was chosen as senator for the district comprised of Jasper and Jefferson counties.² Everett served as a senator, often as president pro tempore, during the first five Texas congresses, but resigned on December 9, 1840, after becoming a realtor and cotton broker at Sabine Pass.³

Joseph Grigsby, a cotton planter of Grigsby’s Bluff, present-day Port Neches, represented Jefferson County in the Second, Third, and Fifth Texas Congresses.⁴ After a term served by Thomas S. McFarland, the voters elected a Jefferson County constituent, George A. Pattillo, to serve as senator during the last three sessions of the legislature, and Dr. Frederick W. Ogden, an early Beaumonter, as representative. As chairman of the Committee on Enrolled Bills, Pattillo led a successful fight against the repeal of the tariff. Both he and Ogden were ardent annexationists. In December 1843, the latter introduced a bill, read twice before the Texas House of Representatives, for a joint resolution on annexation. In February 1844, Pattillo urged President Sam Houston to appoint an additional annexation negotiator in Washington.⁵

In the meantime, the foundations for local government in Jefferson County were being erected. For sheriff, the voters selected William Stephenson, who, in turn, was succeeded in office by Captain David Garner, Robert West, David H. McFaddin, George W. Tevis, and James Hoggatt.⁶ On December 20, 1836, President Houston appointed Chichester Chaplin as chief justice of Jefferson County.⁷ The earliest records indicated that he presided over the 1837 sessions of the commissioners’ court when Jefferson was the county seat.⁸ In November 1837, a month before the infantry colonel’s discharge from the Texas army, President Houston appointed Henry Millard to replace Chaplin, who resigned. Millard presented his commission and presided over the first session of the court at Beaumont in January 1838. He was reappointed in 1840, but was soon replaced by his brother, D. J. Otho Millard.⁹

As might be expected in a frontier society, the county court soon exercised all powers except those delegated to the Fifth Judicial Criminal Court. Other than road, ferry, and bridge jurisdiction, the court issued retail licenses, administered the public school lands and funds, appointed jurors, established school, election, and patrol districts, quarantined areas, naturalized aliens, and, by 1860, engaged in direct welfare assistance.¹⁰

In 1838, a board of land commissioners was established to distribute public lands to the county’s citizens. Among Texas residents who had not fled the province during 1836, unmarried males were entitled to a one-third-league grant upon certification by the board, and an additional two-thirds league upon marriage. By 1839, smaller grants of a half-section were more common. The board existed until 1844, during which years grants were made to about 300 persons.¹¹

As county government gained momentum, speculators surveyed their lands into townsites and sought to reap a greater profit from the sale of lots. The earliest of the speculators, David Brown of San Augustine, laid out the townsite of Santa Ana at the present location of Mobil Oil Company refinery and adjacent to William C. Beard’s ferry across the Neches River.¹²

Brown had previously surveyed the Noah Tevis half-league of land, and one early historian accused Brown of purposely reducing the survey order from one league because he wanted the adjacent land for himself.¹³ Deed records indicate that, only five weeks after receiving a Mexican land grant at Nacogdoches on January 15, 1835, Brown began selling town lots in Santa Ana at $4 each.¹⁴ By 1837, Brown was selling lots for $100 each. A year later, the price had deflated to six lots for $24, and deeds issued that year described the lots as being “in the town of Beaumont, formerly Santa Ana. “¹⁵

The Beaumont townsite stemmed from the sale of fifty acres of the Noah Tevis survey to Henry Millard in September, 1835.¹⁶ Millard’s plan to develop his tract was soon interrupted by military service, but the new village acquired its present name at that time, reputedly, from the brother of Millard’s deceased wife, Thomas Jefferson Beaumont. The San Felipe Telegraph and Texas Register described it in 1835 as “a town which promises to be one of considerable importance. It has received the name of Beaumont, which, from the description of the place, strikes our fancy as very appropriate.”¹⁷

The townsite company began in earnest in July 1837, when the promoters signed an indenture allocating 200 acres of land to the venture. Nancy Tevis of Beaumont and Joseph Grigsby of Grigsby’s Bluff furnished fifty acres each. Joseph P. Pulsifer and Company, a partnership composed of Millard, Pulsifer, and Thomas B. Huling, contributed the other one hundred acres.¹⁸

The developers reserved two blocks as “public squares,” one for a hospital, another for a college, and one at the mouth of Brake’s Bayou designated as the “steam mill square.” The mill square was soon transferred to W. H. Irion upon his agreement to erect a steam sawmill on the site.¹⁹ Irion’s plans evidently foundered for he returned the location to the promoters in 1838, and the mill square remained unoccupied until 1856.²⁰ In 1841, one observer recorded that “Jasper, Sabine, Milam, and Beaumont are already towns of some note.”²¹ Another writer described Beaumont as “ a flourishing town of three hundred inhabitants,” obviously, an exaggerated figure for the year 1840.²²

Jefferson, the former county seat on Cow Bayou, was actually a settlement, or scattering of farmhouses, and was never platted as a townsite. Although described as containing twenty rough- hewn cabins in 1840,²³ it was already in a state of regression, and its post office had been discontinued. By 1845, it had vanished as a community. The new post office was established at Pattillo’s Station, George A. Pattillo’s home on upper Cow Bayou, midway between Beaumont and Orange. Other post offices in 1840 Jefferson County included Beaumont, Pine Island, and Sabine City.²⁴

The journal of the Texas-United States Boundary Commission mentions the townsite of Huntley at Green’s Bluff (Orange) in May 1840, reputedly named for General Memucan Hunt, the Texas boundary commissioner.²⁵ However, a lack of deed records at the Jefferson County courthouse suggests that Huntley’s realty balloon did not ascend from the ground. The name Huntley also appears on the boundary commission map of that year and in the McFarland Journal.²⁶

In April 1845, Benjamin P. Gates and C. S. Hunt surveyed the townsite of Jefferson (named for the earlier Cow Bayou community) at Green’s Bluff and a second addition in 1850. The original plats indicate that Front, Green, Border, Division, and other streets occupied the same positions then that they do today.²⁷ Due to duplication of post office names, Jefferson was changed to Madison (when Orange County was separated) in 1852,²⁸ and was subsequently renamed Orange in 1858.²⁹

License records indicate that A. G. and William Swain were merchants at Green’s Bluff as early as 1840.³⁰ Christian Warner and Dennis Call founded stores there.³¹ By 1847, a school house had been built at Jefferson (where precinct elections were held),³² and Charles Baxter was building and repairing schooners there by January 1846.³³

In October 1837, two San Augustine men, H. M. Hanks and Colonel Almonzan Huston, former quartermaster general of the Texas army, teamed up to found the townsite of Aurora at present-day Port Arthur.³⁴ One record indicates that the townsite contained 6,677 lots.³⁵. Although Huston sold some lots to residents of San Augustine, no more than six transactions are recorded in Jefferson County, and the realty venture was soon abandoned.³⁶ In time, the townsite’s name was transferred to nearby “Sparks’ Settlement,” at the mouth of Taylor’s Bayou, where John and Solomon Sparks settled in 1841 and operated a ferry.³⁷

Equally unsuccessful was the townsite City of The Pass, with 2,500 lots, founded in April 1839 by Dr. Stephen H. Everett, John Bevil, and the latter’s son, John R. Bevil, all of Jasper County. The partners organized a joint stock company and issued 1,000 shares of City of The Pass stock at $500 a share. Dr. Everett built a two-story home at the townsite (the present location of Sabine Pass State Park), where the first session of the Texas- United States Boundary Commission convened in November 1839. Although unsuccessful as a realtor, Everett and his partner, R. C. Doom, the former collector of customs, prospered as cotton merchants until the former’s death in 1845. At that time, the firm was building additional warehouse facilities on Doom’s Island in the mouth of the Neches River. Everett’s widow married Doom in 1847, after which the couple returned to Jasper County.³⁸

In January 1839, the founders of Sam Houston’s Sabine City Company met at old Harrisburg and drew up their firm’s incorporation documents. Other than Houston, the proprietors included Colonel Philip Sublett, Colonel George W. Hockley, W. D. Lee (a Houston merchant), J. S. Roberts and A. G. Kellogg of Nacogdoches (who helped spearhead Sam Houston’s rise to military prominence),³⁹ and Dr. Niles F. Smith, the firm’s agent and promoter at Sabine Pass. The proprietors planned to develop the two and one-half league Santos Coy grant, which Houston and Sublett had acquired.⁴⁰

The Sabine City founders deeded an undivided one-eighth of the townsite to Dr. Smith for $10,000 and issued 1,000 shares of stock in $250, $500, and $1,000 denominations. By April 1839, the directorate also included General Sidney Sherman, Andrew J. F. Phelan (a customhouse employee), James D. Holman (a Galveston merchant), Barney Lowe (a schooner captain of Jasper), Lord Lewis, Augustus Hotchkiss of Sabinetown (Sabine’ first cotton broker), and W. C. V. Dashiell, who subsequently became a Sabine merchant and collector of customs. Holman was elected to head the new company.⁴¹

By May 1839, promoter Smith was painting roseate pictographs about Sabine City’s future. Smith directed his eloquence to the “adventurous, the enterprising, and the capitalist,” noting, concerning Sabine City’s location, “a better cannot be found west of New Orleans.”⁴² With the clearing of the Sabine River for steamboat transportation, other writers, including British consul William Kennedy, hailed the site as the natural collecting point for the commerce of East Texas.⁴³

On January 10, 1840, Sabine City Company held its first public sale of lots and annual stockholders’ meeting, at which attendance was required, either in person or by agent, on penalty of stock forfeiture. The Richmond Telescope noted that 365 lots were sold.⁴⁴ It is probable that General Houston attended the January sale, for, four months earlier, he had contracted with Hickman Lewis of Alabama to deliver seven thoroughbred horses at Sabine Pass during the succeeding six months. The animals were paid for with $6,000 of Sabine City Company scrip.⁴⁵

While the Sabine City Company did not reap large profits for the proprietors, it was the most successful of the county’s early day land ventures. Gradually, the company became virtually synonymous with Dr. Smith, although advertisements as late as December 1845 notified the stockholders to attend the annual board meeting.⁴⁶

In 1844, the French minister to Texas, Count Dubois de Saligny, described Sabine City as consisting of “eight or ten sorry wooden shacks,” a rather harsh evaluation by the debonair Parisian.⁴⁷ By conservative estimate, the writer credits both Beaumont and Sabine City, apart from the countryside, as possessing 150 inhabitants each as of that year.

Land titles at Sabine Pass remained clouded until 1845. In 1839, agent Smith purchased a military bounty certificate from Captain Barney Lowe for a choice 640 acres of ridge land that fronted on the Sabine Pass. A quarrel developed because the section of land was also a part of John McGaffey’s league, the survey of which had been authorized at Nacogdoches in 1835. Eventually, the Texas General Land Office ruled that Smith’s certificate was a forgery, one of many that were circulating in East Texas at that time. Smith and McGaffey resolved their dispute, became partners in the second townsite of Sabine Pass in 1845, and in-laws when two of their children married.⁴⁸

As of 1840, about one-third of Sabine City’s males were sailors or customhouse employees; another one-third were businessmen or with the Sabine City Company; and the remainder were stockmen and farmers.

Jefferson County’s era of early town building was accompanied by unsuccessful attempts at town government. On December 16, 1838, the republic’s legislature issued a charter for the town of Beaumont. Its citizens were authorized to elect a mayor, eight aldermen, a treasurer, and a secretary.⁴⁹ Existing minutes reveal that a brief attempt at incorporation resulted from an election held on July 28, 1840. Alexander Calder was elected mayor, and Henry Millard, John D. Swain, H. B. Littlefield, and Patrick Clark served as the first aldermen. As recorded in the minutes, the object of greatest local concern was the crossing of cattle herds over the Neches River.⁵⁰

On August 20, 1860, a second election to incorporate Beaumont passed with a majority of the voters in favor.⁵¹ On October 2, 1860, the second city government held its first meeting with A. N. Vaughn as mayor and H. F. Simpson as secretary. On March 1, 1861, John Dillon was engaged to enroll and assess the taxable property in the community. Apparently, the Civil War ended the second attempt at town government. Mayor Vaughn soon enlisted, and the last entry in the minute book was dated April 9, 1861.⁵²

No records of early government at Sabine Pass survive. According to the Galveston Weekly News, the town’s citizens petitioned the state legislature for an act of incorporation in July 1857. The voters elected Isaiah Ketchum as mayor, Abel Coffin as recorder, T. B: Whiting as treasurer, and John McCall as city .marshal. The board of aldermen, which included Otis McGaffey, John Orr, J. H. Garner, and P. D. Stockholm, requested the legislature to change the town’s name to Augusta to end the missending of mail to Sabinetown.⁵³

Apparently, the first effort to incorporate Sabine Pass was also brief. On August 31, 1860, the commissioners’ court authorized another incorporation election at Sabine.⁵⁴ A Union navy letter reported that the mayor of Sabine (unnamed) died of yellow fever on September 22, 1862.⁵⁵ The writer knows of no further attempts at town government until the late Reconstruction period.

Early town building was generally a failure, and the two communities that survived experienced only minimal growth at first. Nevertheless, many of the immigrants who crossed the Sabine River after 1839 remained in Jefferson County. A small migration of French Acadians had begun, but the newcomers from Louisiana settled in the countryside as either farmers or ranchers.

George W. O’Brien, an early Beaumonter, recorded that the immigrants of 1839 lived in temporary camps and tents near Nancy Tevis’s ferry in Beaumont before moving on westward.⁵⁶ In 1839, fifteen years before a permanent courthouse was built, the county’s citizens built their first jail, a two-story log structure, which O’Brien later recalled with ease. O’Brien recorded that one of the miscreants of that era, charged with murder and robbery, was found dead the day after his incarceration, hanged to a nearby oak tree with a ten-penny nail driven into the base of his skull. The wilderness was releasing its grip with firm reluctance, and another decade would pass before such cultural refinements as schools or churches existed.⁵⁷

  CAPT. CHARLES FOWLER—captain Fowler was master of the Rebel gunboat Josiah H. Bell and chief of Confederate marine operations in Sabine Lake. Captured by a Federal patrol in April 1863, he was imprisoned in New York thereafter.

MAJOR FELIX Mc REYNOLDS—Major McReynolds, executive officer of Griffin’s Battalion, commanded Fort Manhassett as well as the Confederate infantry at the Battle of Calcasieu Pass. He was later a Sabine businessman and died at Beaumont in 1912.

COL. LEON SMITH—The commandant of the Confederacy’s Texas Marine Department, Col. Smith arrived at Fort Griffin while the Battle of Sabine Pass was in progress. He held the Rebel emblem aloft over the parapets.

Endnotes

1 Stanley Siegel, A Political History of The Texas Republic, 1836-1845 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1956), p. 47.

2 H P. N. Gammel (compiler), The Laws of Texas, 1822-1897 (10 volumes; Austin: Gammel Book Company, 1898), I, p. 824; L. W. Kemp, The Signers of The Texas Declaration of Independence (Salado, Texas: Anson Jones Press, 1944), pp. 109, 363-364.

3 E. W. Winkler (ed.), Secret Journals of The Senate, Republic of Texas, 1836-1845, in Texas Library and Historical Commission First Biennial Report, 1909-19 10 (Austin: Austin Printing Company, 1911), pp. 10, 70, 109, 112, 134, 182.

4 Beaumont Enterprise, August 12, 1964.

5 Winkler (ed.), Secret Journals of The Senate, p. 302; A. M. Williams and E. C. Barker (eds.), The Writings of Sam Houston, 18 13-1863 (8 volumes; Austin: Pemberton Press, 1970), IV, pp. 352-353; Nancy N. Barker (ed.), The French Legation in Texas (2 volumes; Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1973), II, p. 494. Dr. Ogden served as district attorney for the Fifth Judicial District of East Texas from 1839 until 1842. His brother, James Ogden of Beaumont, drew a black bean and was executed as a result of the ill-fated Mier Expedition.

6 Volume A, pp. 1, 25, 43, 45, 53, 66, Commissioners’ Count Minutes, Jefferson County, Texas; Beaumont Enterprise, November 22, 1908. The Enterprise issue contains a complete list of the county’s elected officials from 1837 until 1908.

7 Winkler (ed.), Secret Journals of The Senate, p. 34.

8 Volume A, pp. 1-2, Commissioners’ Court Minutes, Jefferson County, Texas.

9 Ibid. pp. 6, 45; Winkler (ed.), Secret Journals of The Senate, pp. 86, 175.

10 Volumes A, pp. 2, 21, 80; B, pp. 112-1 14, 220, 226, 239, 246; and C, pp. 43-45, 161, Commissioners’ Court Minutes, Jefferson County, Texas; Record of Retail Licenses, 1839-1851, pages unnumbered, Jefferson County, Texas. Freeholders subject to jury duty in 1837 included: James Stephenson, William Gill, William T. Hatton, John Townsend, C. C. P. Welch, Benjamin Johnson, R. Ballew, William McFaddin, Uriah Gibson, D. Garner, Joseph Ritchie, S. Simmons, Benjamin Allen, Robert Hatton, Isaac Garner, Thomas Rowe, Uriah Harris, Jacob Garner, D. St. Clair, Charles Cronier, Gilbert Stephenson, W. E. Smith, James Dyson, John Stephenson, Elisha Stephenson, Abraham Winfree, M. Hatton, B. Arthur, David Harmon, John Cole, William Hays, W. H. Irion, Elisha Allen, John A. Caruthers, William Clark, Clark Beach, John Bland, George Allen, Charles Myers, Silas Parmer, James Simmons, Joseph Young, William Hatton, Jr., N. Holbert, James Ware, J. T. Robinson, James Jett, Peyton Bland, John Harmon, Thomas Heart, Elijah Allen, Claiborne West, Charles Cohorn, T. N. Mathias, Absalom Jett, and Aaron Allen. The first associate justices of the court were George A. Pattillo and Reason Green, with John Harmon and Abraham Winfree serving as county commissioners. Joseph Grigaby, Hezekiah Williams, George Allen, and Richard Ballew were appointed as the first reviewers of roads. Thomas H. Brennan was the first clerk of the county court, and Claiborne West served as the first president of the board of land commissioners.

11 Minutes, Board of Land Commissioners, pp. 1ff, Jefferson County, Texas.

12 O H. Delano, county surveyor, “Map of Jefferson County,” April, 1840, Texas General Land Office, Austin, Texas.

13 Beaumont Journal, May 13, 1906.

14 Volume B, p. 139, Deed Records, Jefferson County, Texas; J. F. Clark, “Map of Jefferson County,” July 22, 1896, Texas General Land Office, Austin, Texas.

15 Volumes A, pp. 71, 114-115, 147, and B, p.47, Deed Records, Jefferson County, Texas.

16 Volume B, p. 193, Deed Records, Jefferson County, Texas; Harry Hansen (ed.), Texas: A Guide To The Lone Star State (New York: Hastings House, 1969), p. 189.

17 W. F. Gray, From Virginia To Texas, 1835: Diary of Colonel William F. Gray (reprint; Houston: Fletcher Young Publishing Company, 1965), p. 167; (San Felipe) Telegraph and Texas Register, October 26, 1835; Homer S. Thrall, A Pictorial History of Texas (St. Louis: N. D. Thompson and Company, 1879), p. 672.

18 Volume C, p. 364, Deed Records, Jefferson County, Texas.

19 Volume D, pp. 40-47, Deed Records, and James Rachford, “Map of The Townsite of Beaumont, Texas,” Map Records, Jefferson County, Texas.

20 Volumes A, p. 201; and L, pp. 8, 77, 292, Deed Records, Jefferson County, Texas.

21 Arthur 1km, Texas: Its History, Topography, Agriculture, Commerce, and General Statistics (London: Sherwcod, Gilbert, and Peper, 1841, reprinted by Texian Press, 1964), p. 28.

22 George W. Bonnell, Topographical Description of Texas (Austin: Clark, Wing, and Brown, 1840, reprinted by Texian Press, 1964), p. 13.

23 Edward Stiff, The Texas Immigrant—1840 (reprint; Waco: Texian Press, 1968), p. 123

24 William Kennedy Texas: The Rise, Progress, and Prospects of The Republic of Texas (reprint; Fort Worth: The Molyneaux Craftsmen, Incorporated, 1925), p. 732; (Galveston) Daily News, April 30, 1842.

25 Beaumont Journal, December 24, 1905. In 1905, the journal and the commission correspondence were still in the possession of G. W. Smyth, Jr., of Beaumont. They have since been collected among the George Washington Smyth Papers in the University of Texas library in Austin.

26 “Map of The Sabine River,” Texas-United States Boundary Commission, 1840, Texas General Land Office; F. C. Chabot (ed.), A Journal of The Coincidences and Acts of Thomas S. McFarland (San Antonio: Yanaguana Society, 1942), p. 65.

27 Volumes E, p. 255, and H, pp. 158-159, Deed Records, Jefferson County, Texas.

28 Gammel, Laws of Texas, m, p. 926.

29 Works Progress Administration, Inventory of The County Archives of Texas: No. 181, Orange County (San Antonio: Texas Historical Records Survey, 1941), p. 7.

30 Letters, A. G. and W. Swain to the Treasurer of Jefferson County, Green’s Bluff, September 4, 1840 and September 1, 1841, as recorded in Record of Retail Licenses, 1839-1851, Jefferson County, Texas.

31 Record of Retail Licenses, 1839-1851, Jefferson County, Texas; John H. Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas (Austin: L. E. Daniel, 189?), p. 468; Orange Tribune, February 22, 1884, photocopy owned by the writer.

32 Volume A, p. 80, Commissioners’ Court Minutes, Jefferson County, Texas.

33 (Galveston) Weekly News, February 11, 1850.

34 Volume A, pp. 122-123, Deed Records, Jefferson County, Texas.

35 Gifford White (ed.), The 1840 Census of The Republic of Texas (Austin: Pemberton Press, 1966), p. 98.

36 Volumes A, pp. 136, 142, and C, pp. 258, 289, Deed Records, Jefferson County, Texas; Delano, “Map of Jefferson County,” 1840, and R. Creuzbauer, “DeCordova’s Map of The State of Texas,” 1849, both at the Texas General Land Office. F. E. Wilcox, the county engineer of Jefferson County, owns the original City of Aurora stock certificate No. 37 for five lots, dated at Aurora, Republic of Texas, on June 1, 1840.

37 Lorecia East, History and Progress of Jefferson County (Dallas: Royal Publishing Company, 1961), pp. 113-114.

38 White 1840 Census of Texas, p. 98; Volume D, pp. 27-31, Deed Records, Jefferson County, Texas; Delano, “Map of Jefferson County,” 1840; Anna D. Pickrell, Pioneer Women in Texas (Austin: Steck Company, 1929), pp. 147-154; “Map of The Sabine River,” Texas-United States Boundary Commission, 1840; Mrs. C. Martin, “Early Settlers in Jasper County,” Kirbyville (Texas) Banner, May 7, 1971; Kemp, Signers of The Texas Declaration of Independence, pp. 107-111. For advertisements of S. H. Everett and Company, cotton brokers; see New Orleans Weekly Picaynue, February 1840, and (Galveston) Civilian and Galveston Gazette, November 4, 1840.

39 Proclamation of Sublett and Kellogg, reprinted in Williams and Barker, Writings of Sam Houston, I, p. 303.

40 Volume A, pp. 189-190, Deed Records, Jefferson County, Texas.

41 Volumes C, pp. 247-248, and D, pp. 27-31, Deed Records, Jefferson County, Texas; S. Flanagan, Sam Houston’s Texas (Austin: G and S Typesetters, 1964), p. 53. Mrs. Carl White of Port Arthur owns a $250 certificate; a $500 note is in the Rosenberg Library in Galveston; and a $1,000 certificate is in the Louis Lenz Collection in Houston. The $250 note lists 2,060 lots as surveyed in the townsite.

42 (Houston) Telegraph and Texas Register, July 24, 1839.

43 Richmond (Texas) Telescope, April 4, 1840; Kennedy, Texas: The Rise, Progress and Prospects, p. 24; Barker and Williams (eds.), Writings of Sam Houston, I, p. 303, and II, p. 312; (Houston) Telegraph and Texas Register, May 29, 1839.

44 Richmond Telescope, April 4, 1840; (Houston) Telegraph and Texas Register, May 29, 1839; White (ed.), 1840 Census of Texas, p. 98. In April 1840, Houston and Sublett owned 2,112 lots jointly and individuals owned a total of 408 lots.

45 Williams and Barker, Writings of Sam Houston, II, pp. 313-314.

46 (Galveston) Civilian and Galveston Gazette, December 17, 1845.

47 Barker, The French Legation in Texas, II, p. 554.

48 Volumes C, p. 217, and E, pp. 189, 191, 301, 438-439,  Deed Records, Jefferson County, Texas; Beaumont Journal, January 14, February 25, and March 25, 1906. The marriage was between Helen Smith and Wesley Garner, McGaffey’s stepson.

49 Gammel, Laws of Texas, II, pp. 9-11.

50 F. E. Wilcox (compiler), “Records of the Hon. the Board of Aldermen of the Town of Beaumont,” Texas Gulf Historical and Biographical Record, VIII (November, 1972), pp. 62-65.

51 Volume C, pp. 45-46, Commissioners’ Court Minutes, Jefferson County, Texas.

52 Record of the Board of Aldermen of Beaumont, 1860-1861, pages unnumbered, county clerk’s office, Jefferson County, Texas.

53 (Galveston) Weekly News, July 28, 1857.

54 Volume C, p. 47, Commissioners’ Court Minutes, Jefferson County, Texas.

55 The War of The Rebellion: A Compilation of The Official Records of The Union and Confederate Navies (Washington, D. C. Government Printing Office, 1894-1927), Series I, Volume XIX, p. 220.

56 George W. O’Brien, “Early Days in Beaumont,” - Beaumont Enterprise, April 16, 1905.

57 Ibid. Volumes A, p. 25, and B, p. 111, Commissioners’ Court Minutes, Jefferson County, Texas.