Bevilport

BEVILPORT, TEXAS . Bevilport (Bevelport) is on Farm Road 2799 and the east bank of the Angelina River nine miles west of Jasper in northwestern Jasper County. It was named for John Bevil , but it should not be confused with the Bevil, Texas, that became Jasper. Bevilport was a river-navigation point from 1830 to 1860. Sam Houston purchased the first lot in the townsite. The community had a population of 140 by 1831 and was noted for bustling docks, which shipped East Texas cotton and hides to New Orleans. A mail station operated at Bevilport in 1835, and the community was incorporated by the Congress of the Republic of Texas on June 5, 1837. The town had a hotel and main street by the 1850s and served as a business and social center until the Civil War . It was a freight depot for northern Jasper County during high-water seasons. In the 1870s the town declined when logging for the Beaumont sawmills impeded river transportation on the Neches River below its confluence with the Angelina. A post office, established in 1854, was discontinued in 1866, reopened in 1897, and closed permanently in 1899. In the 1890s the community had a general store and a population of 100. A historical marker was erected at the site in 1936, but by 1948 only two old store buildings and the home of Randolph C. Doom , built in 1852, were still standing. In the 1980s two nearby churches and scattered dwellings remained to mark the townsite.