Bevil's Settlement

Bevil's Settlement was a loosely defined community of pre-Republic of Texas settlers who settled between the Neches and Sabine rivers on land that was eventually organized as Jasper and Newton counties. The settlement was named for John Bevil, who moved there before 1829. Additional immigration was somewhat facilitated by Lorenzo de Zavala's grant to settle 500 families in Southeast Texas in 1829. The next year George W. Smyth found about thirty families scattered between the Sabine and Neches rivers. The area received a form of recognition when Juan Antonio Padilla was appointed comisario of the Bevil's Settlement precinct as part of Nacogdoches Municipality. Several residents participated in the Anahuac Disturbances and the battle of Nacogdoches. The municipality, established in 1834, was renamed Jasper in 1835. Though most of the residents of Bevil's Settlement were apparently clustered near the site of present-day Jasper, a few early settlers established roots to the east, in what later became Newton County. In 1836 Mary Austin Holley described Bevil's Settlement as being on the Sabine River within the jurisdiction of the Department of Nacogdoches. "It is a populous neighborhood," she wrote, "but cannot be called a town." Newton County secured its separation from Jasper County in 1846.