The Story of Beaumont

• Home (Front Cover)
• Foreword
• The Covered Wagon
• Beginnings of Beaumont
• The First Wedding
• A Love Story
• La Salle's Grave
• Early River Trading
• Naming the Town
• How Beaumont Streets Got Their Names
• Homes of Early Days
• The First Cotton in Texas
• The Acadians
• The Black Bean
• Boy Feud
• The Alligator Circuit
• The Late Train
• Beaumont in the Wars
• The Newspaper Comes
• Spindletop, The Wonder Oil Field
• Boom Days
• Industries That Built the City
• Lumber, The City's First Stepping Stone
• Providence Rice
• "Thirty Feet to the Gulf"
• Its Government
• Gifts to the City
• Where Beaumont Plays
• A Living Landmark
• Gleanings from Beaumont's Book of Life
• Beaumont's Yard Stick
• Index

• List of Illustrations
• About the Author
• Copyright Questions
• MyKindred.com Home

Beginnings of Beaumont

JEFFERSON county, which included the present Orange county and part of Hardin county, was in the period of its first settlement a part of the Lorenza de Zavalla colony under the government of the State of Coahuila and Texas, with headquarters at Nacogdoches, and was first called Liberty county. The contract between de Zavalla and the state of Coahuila and Texas was made in 1829. From Nacogdoches all business was transacted and there were the officers of the Mexican government through whom the land grants were made.

The section of the colony which forms the present Jefferson county had scattered settlers prior to 1834. But the first application for any of the land in the present town site of Beaumont was made by Noah Tevis on December 13, 1834, though Tevis with his family had lived here prior to that date as old records show. In many instances colonists lived for a number of years on the land before they possessed any section of it through grant of the government. One petition on record shows an application made in 1829 for land in the county, but not until 1835 was the land surveyed and the title of possession given by the government.

On January 16, 1835, one-half a league of land, approximately 2214 acres, was granted by the government of the state of Coahuila and Texas to Noah Tevis, the grant lying along the Neches river front. The settlement was then called Tevis Bluff, and the Neches river often called the Snow or White river.

An interesting insight into the legal proceedings necessary to obtaining land from the government is afforded by reading the petition and grant to Noah Tevis, as recorded in the General Land Office.

The new settlers were to pay for each league of grazing lands thirty dollars, and for each labor (117) acres, three and one-half dollars, but they had six years to pay same, in three installments, the first to he paid in four years, the second in five years, and the third in six years from the date of settlement.

The original town of Beaumont was formed of land that was in the Tevis grant, but included in the present city limits of Beaumont is land granted by the Mexican government to David Brown, January 1835; J. W. Bullock, January 1835; James Drake, July 1835; and patent land rights by the Republic and state of Texas to Absolom Williams, November 1841; to James McFaddin in July, 1845; to William McFaddin in July, 1845; to D. J. O. Millard, in July, 1851; to W. P. H. McFaddin, March, 1905.

In September, 1835, Noah Tevis sold to Henry Millard fifty acres of his original grant for a consideration of $500. Noah Tevis died December 6, 1835, less than a year after the land was granted to him, and left his estate to the management of his widow, Nancy Tevis, who in 1837 sold to Joseph Grigsby fifty acres of land.

The town of Beaumont was laid off in July, 1837, and the boundary lines established in an agreement between Nancy Tevis, and heirs of Noah Tevis, the Joseph P. Pulsifer company, which was composed of Henry Millard, Joseph Pulsifer and Thomas P. Holing; and Joseph Grigsby. The original plot included an acreage of two hundred acres, all within the original Tevis grant, but one hundred acres of which now belonged to the Pulsifer company; fifty acres to Nancy Tevis and fifty acres to Joseph Grigsby. The record of this mutual agreement into a company of the owners of the land clearly defines the boundaries and the accompanying map shows the original town site, with the streets as named in the deed of partition.

In 1839 the members of the town site company -- Nancy Tevis, Joseph Grigsby and the Pulsifer company, divided the property in the boundary lines of the town, designating and recording it in the deed of partition, the personal property of each of the three members. Certain tracts of land not included in the private ownership were then set aside for "public roads and commons", the partition deed stating: "And the said parties of the three parts do hereby covenant and agree that all streets, commons, lots of ground within the limits of the said town of Beaumont not hereinbefore enumerated and described as belonging to the aforesaid parties of the three parts or other persons or individuals in severalty be and the same are hereby given, granted, released and forever quitclaimed into the corporation of the town of Beaumont, and their successors in office forever for the purposes of said streets, highways, and commons of said town and shall be forever kept open for the free use of the citizens thereof." This deed is signed by Nancy Hutchinson, G. W. Tevis, Gilbert Stephenson, Joseph Pulsifer, Thomas P. Huling, Henry Millard and Joseph Grigsby.

These lots or commons as designated in the earliest maps of the town site, one of which was prepared for Millard, and one for Huling, include the present court house property, Keith park, Millard school grounds, the high school campus, and the city hall site.

A typical family of that period, the pioneers that laid out the town of Beaumont, was the Noah Tevis family, composed of Mr. and Mrs. Tevis and their eight children, Andrew Jackson, George Washington, Napoleon Bonaparte, Noah, Roland; Mary Tevis who married Gilbert Stephenson; Delilah who married Pierre Lemane, and Lovesa who married Daniel Cheshire.

Where Noah Tevis lived.

On September 9, 1838, Nancy Tevis, widow of Noah Tevis, married Joseph Hutchinson, and "grandma Nancy Hutchinson" left an indelible impress on the minds of the pioneers, a number of whom still recall her, her home and her fine spirit of service to the community. She died in 1863, dividing her property equally among her children with the following special clauses: "I give and devise to my son, Andrew J. Tevis, my negro man Abe; I give and de vise to my granddaughter, Elizabeth Tevis, daughter of Noah Tevis, my negro girl Betsy; I give and devise to my daughter, Polly Stephenson, my mare, buggy, and also feather bed and the bedding belonging to the same, also my tin safe."

An index to the names of the early settlers of the county is shown in the marriage records of the county for the first five years of its settlement, from 1837 to 1842, as reproduced below:

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