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Joseph Grigsby, early settler
and congressman in the Republic of Texas,qv
son of Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Butler) Grigsby, was born on
Bull Run in Loudoun County, Virginia, on September 24, 1771. The
family moved in 1786 to Kentucky, where they settled on a
1,000-acre land grant on Beech Fork in Nelson County. Grigsby
married Sarah (Sally) Mitchell Graham, whose family lived on the
adjoining grant, on June 28, 1798, in Bardstown, Kentucky. They
became the parents of thirteen children.
The Grigsbys moved west to
Daviess County, Kentucky, in 1817, where Joseph developed a
prosperous 1,000-acre cotton plantation on the Green River. In
1828 they moved to the Mexican province of Texas, where they
settled first in Lorenzo de Zavala'sqv
colony in Jasper County. After the Texas Revolutionqv
in 1836 Grigsby built a large plantation with slave labor on his
Neches River grant in Jefferson County and built the first
horse-driven cotton gin in the area. The community of Grigsby's
Bluff became a busy trading stop for side-wheelers and flatboats
on the Neches. Grigsby acquired over 10,000 acres extending from
the site of present-day Port Neches to Mesquite Point on Sabine
Pass and became the wealthiest person in Jefferson County.
He and three other prominent
citizens gave 200 acres of land and laid out the townsite of
Beaumont in 1837. He was elected land-office commissioner for
Jefferson County and a representative in the Second, Third, and
Fifth congresses of the Republic of Texas. He died at Grigsby's
Bluff on September 13, 1841, and was buried on his plantation.
His estate was administered by his son-in-law, George W. Smyth,qv
a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence.qv
BIBLIOGRAPHY: "The
Autobiography of George W. Smyth,"
Southwestern Historical Quarterly 36
(January 1933). Texas House of Representatives,
Biographical Directory of the Texan
Conventions and Congresses, 1832-1845
(Austin: Book Exchange, 1941).
Camellia T. Denys
- Handbook of Texas
Online, s.v. ","
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/GG/fgr66.html
(accessed March 3, 2008).
(NOTE: "s.v." stands for sub verbo, "under the word.")
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