Tyler County
Woodville, Tyler County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(Crossroads to East Texas) Home ground of civilized tribes of Indians. Visited 1756 by Spanish explorers, who were trying to keep French trading expeditions out of Texas. Site in 1831 of Fort Teran, commanded by Colonel ellis Peter Bean, famous and colorful adventurer. The county was created an organized in 1846. It was named for President John Tyler, who signed the resolution to annex Texas to the United States. A 200-acre plot for a county seat was donated by a leading early settler, Josiah Wheat. It was named "Woodville" for George T. Wood, sponsor of the bill in the First Legislature of Texas which created the county. (Wood later served as Governor of Texas, from 1847 to 1849.) In the "Big Thicket." Home of the annual Dogwood Festival. Economy is based on timber, oil, livestock. First county officials: William P. Sansour, chief justice; Ezekiel Green, George Kirkwood, Angelina Parker, Ivy Taylor, commissioners; James Sapp, sheriff; James Barclay, tax assessor and collector; J. Dobb and William Gray, justices of the peace; Harmon Frazier, surveyor; John C. Arnett, treasurer. 1966 county officials: Jeff R. Mooney, county judge; Joe I. Best, F. C. Hicks, Leon Fowler, H. H. Powell, commissioners; J. F. Boyd, treasurer; Tom Sawyer, county clerk; A. L. Thornton, tax assessor & collector; Clyde E. Smith, Jr., county attorney; Grady Ray, sheriff; B. M. Minter, county school superintendent; Hilda Coats, district clerk; Joe H. Loggins, E. E. Sheffield, Clarence Woodrome, L. L. Parrish, justices of the peace.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This marker traces Tyler County from its deep past as home ground of East Texas tribes, through a 1756 visit by Spanish explorers wary of French traders, to Fort Teran on the Neches in 1831. When Texas joined the Union, the county was organized in 1846 and named for President John Tyler, who signed the annexation resolution; its seat, Woodville, honored legislator and future governor George T. Wood. Set in the dense wilds of the "Big Thicket," the community grew on timber, oil, and livestock.
Why it matters
The county's layered story—Indigenous homeland, imperial rivalry, frontier fort, and statehood-era founding—compresses the whole contest for East Texas into a single crossroads.
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Related people
- · John Tyler
- · Ellis Peter Bean
- · Josiah Wheat
- · George T. Wood
Related events
- · Annexation of Texas
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hart Mill Cemetery
Woodville, TX
This East Texas burial ground grew up around a water-powered mill on Sutton Lake and became the resting place of some of Tyler County's earliest Anglo pioneers. Families like the Barclays and Bevils arrived as Texas moved from a Mexican province to an independent republic in 1836, and their leaders helped organize the young county's government and courts, with John Bevil even serving as a delegate to the 1835 Consultation that set the Revolution in motion. James Walter Barclay's role as agent to the Alabama, Coushatta, and Pakana Muskogee peoples marks the uneasy meeting of settlers and Native nations on this frontier. In 1929 descendants formally deeded the ground as a community cemetery, and their families tend it still.
James Barclay Place, 1842
Woodville, TX
Raised of hand-hewn pine in 1842, this is remembered as the oldest home in Tyler County, built by the area's first Indian agent—a man appointed to that post by Sam Houston, the towering figure of the Republic of Texas. In the young Republic, an Indian agent stood at the fraught boundary between Anglo settlers pressing westward and the Native peoples already on the land. The house survives as a rare wooden witness to Texas's earliest days of statehood-in-waiting.
Davis Cemetery
Jasper, TX
This cemetery lies within the 1280-acre grant given to Elizabeth Davis in 1841; believed to be of Indian heritage, she had brought her three children from Georgia to Jasper County in 1836. Local tradition holds that a sick Indian child she took in was the first buried here, though the oldest marked grave is that of Elizabeth Davis Kelly, who died in 1873. Once a family plot, the ground opened to the wider community as sawmills and logging arrived, and it now holds more than 370 graves, including citizens of the Republic of Texas and Civil War veterans.
Polk County
Livingston, TX
Polk County was carved from Liberty County and organized in July 1846, with Livingston as its seat, in the first months after Texas joined the Union. It was named for President James K. Polk, whose administration championed the annexation of Texas. Early settlements clustered at river landings like Drew's Landing and Swartout, and on land granted by the state in 1854 the descendants of the Alabama Indians still make their home.