Bee County Site
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Bee County was created by an act of the Texas Legislature on December 8,1857, and contains 538,880 acres of land (842 square miles). Most of the acreage came from San Patricio County, but also included were portions of Refugio, Goliad, Karnes and Live Oak Counties. General Hamilton P. Bee, then Speaker of the House of Representatives, asked that this new county be named in memory of his father, Colonel Bernard E. Bee, Sr. and the request was granted. (Col. Bee apparently never saw the soil of Bee County, and died in his native state of South Carolina in 1853, five years before the county was organized.)

The first court was held on February 10, 1858 under a tree near the west bank of Medio Creek, on land donated by Edward Seeligson, seven miles east of the present town of Beeville. The first townsite was called Marysville, in honor of Mary Hefferman, whose father and other family members were massacred by Indians and Mexicans in 1836. A courthouse was built of pickets with a dirt floor and clapboard roof; the furniture consisted of one table and two benches.

There was some dissatisfaction with the location of the county site and donations of land were offered by other citizens. An election was held, and the offer of 200 acres by Mrs. Ann (Carroll) Burke was accepted. Mr. Seeligson's land was returned to him and the county site was removed from the Medio to its present location on the Poesta creek, a branch of the Aransas River. The legislature would not accept Marysville as the name of the town, and in 1860 the name was changed to Beeville. A courthouse was built just west of the present site at a cost of $705.50

• The Historical Story of Bee County Texas by Camp Ezell
• Interesting Facts Bee County and Beeville
• Bee County and Beeville History from Chamber of Commerce
• Beeville and Bee County Through Three Centuries
• Beeville and Bee County Historical Sites

Updated Saturday, 19 May 2007 14:37:22

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