Galveston County, Texas
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Galveston County Facts

Galveston County was created in 1838 (Organized in 1839) and formed from Brazoria and Liberty Counties. Galveston County was named for Bernardo de Gálvez, a Spanish governor of the Louisiana Territory and an ally of the United States during the American Revolution. The County Seat is Galveston. The Official County website is located at http://www.co.galveston.tx.us. See also Extended History for more historical details.

Areas adjacent to Galveston County are Harris County (north), Chambers County (northeast), Brazoria County (west)

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Galveston County Court Records

Galveston County Vital Records

Galveston County Census Records

Galveston County Maps & Atlases

Galveston County Military Records

Galveston County Tax Records

Galveston County Genealogical Addresses

Galveston County Church & Cemeteries

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

The use of published genealogies, electronic files containing genealogical lineage, and other compiled sources can be of tremendous value to a researcher.

When view family trees online or not, be sure to only take the info at face value and always follow up with your own sources or verify the ones they provide. Below is a list of online resources for Galveston County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing Galveston County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information by clicking the link below:

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Galveston County, Texas Family Books at Amazon.com

Extended History

Sixteenth-century Spanish explorers knew Galveston Island as Isla de Malhado, the "Isle of Misfortune," or Isla de Culebras, the "Isle of Snakes." In 1519, Juan de Grijalva discovered the island. Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, accompanying the Narváez expedition in 1528, was shipwrecked on what may have been Galveston Island, and is credited with naming the island Malhado. In 1685 French explorer René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, challenged Spanish control in the area and may have named the island San Louis for Louis XIV of France, but did not establish settlements. Eighteenth-century Dutch buccaneers may also have visited, but these explorers, like later revolutionaries and privateers, left little evidence of their passage. In 1783 José Antonio de Evia, a Spanish navigator, surveyed the channel and named the bay Galvezton for Viceroy Bernardo de Gálvez, who befriended the United States in the Revolutionary War. The island maintained its designation under the Spanish as San Luis for a time, but had become known as Galveston Island by 1820.

American presence in Galveston County began in 1815 when Henry Perry and Warren D. C. Hall,q former members of the Gutiérrez-Magee expedition, landed at Bolivar Point in September with three ships and 200 men. Perry named the point for Simón Bolívar, the "Liberator," who commissioned him to attack Spanish commerce on the Gulf and direct expeditions against the Spanish in Mexico. The period from 1815 to 1821, however, was dominated by freebooters, filibusters, and pirates, notably the Frenchmen Louis Michel Aury and Jean Laffite.q Aury arrived with thirteen ships on September 16, 1816, and established a base on Galveston Island. In 1816 he was joined by Francisco Xavier Mina, who established an earthwork fort and then set out to invade Mexico. Roughly a thousand inhabitants populated the island by 1817. Jean Laffite, who was appointed governor of Galveston Island by the Republic of Mexico, established a community at the site of the present Sealy Hospital in Galveston; he named it Campeche after a town on the Yucatán coast. The fort he constructed in 1817 lasted only a year before it was destroyed by a storm, but by 1819 "Campeachy," in Anglo settlers' orthography, had a population of between 1,000 and 2,000. Laffite was also appointed governor of the island by the provisional government of American merchant James Long, who promised land for recruits if they supported his filibustering campaign to drive royalists from Texas and planned to set up a new republican government and attract immigrants with the offer of large land grants. Long's effort to establish a civil government at Nacogdoches failed, and he established new headquarters at Fort Las Casas at Bolivar Point in September 1819. From there he launched an expedition in 1821 to capture La Bahía, but was captured himself, sent to Mexico City, and killed. Jane Wilkinson Long, his wife, spent a harrowing time at Fort Las Casas during his absence. Laffite, hunted by the United States government for plundering an American vessel, burned Campeche and left the coast in 1821.

Settlement proceeded slowly while the area remained part of Mexico. In 1822 an unaffiliated group of eighty American colonists from the schooner Revenge settled on the part of the mainland that later became Galveston County, and in 1827 the first American colonists settled on Galveston Island near Offat's Bayou. Mexican jurisdiction over the Galveston port continued from 1824 until the Texas Revolution, but colonization had been organized under the Mexican empresario system, and it was Stephen F. Austin who in 1825 encouraged the Mexican government to establish a provisional port at Galveston and to build a customhouse with a garrison for protection. Since the island's sole importance was its proximity to the harbor, its customhouse and military posts controlled the area, but these arrangements eventually led to friction between Anglo settlers and Mexican authorities over the issue of land titles and other matters. John Davis Bradburn, sent by the Mexican government in 1830 to establish a garrison at Anahuac, on the northeastern edge of Galveston Bay, aroused opposition from the colonists that prompted the Anahuac disturbances and led to the arrest of William Barret Travis and others. David G. Burnet and Lorenzo de Zavala acquired contracts to settle families in the area in accordance with the Mexican colonization laws and on October 16, 1830, formed a stock company called the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company to promote their effort. They succeeded in bringing settlers to Texas only after 1835, however, when Mexico had surrendered control of the area. In 1834 Michel B. Menard purchased the first claim on the site of future Galveston, and commercial traffic began to move through the port thereafter. During the revolution, Texans fortified Galveston and the Texas Navy berthed in its port. The ad interim government under David G. Burnet took refuge on Galveston Island in April, 1836, and made Galveston the temporary capital of the new republic. News of the battle of San Jacinto reached Burnet at Galveston, Mexican prisoners were interred there, and in 1836, after the Consultation instituted a new Galveston customs district, a new customhouse was established. Congress made Galveston a port of entry in 1837. Fort Travis protected the port from 1836 to 1844.

Galveston County was formed in 1838 under the republic from Harrisburg, Liberty, and Brazoria counties and organized in 1839. The county was organized in 1839. The first county courthouse, at Saccarappa, a community named for a river in Maine by settlers from that state, was located at the eastern end of Galveston Island. Before the Civil War, goods flowed into Galveston from across the county and the region. By 1839 steamers that furnished supplies to much of Texas plied the distance between the port and New Orleans, and construction of the Galveston wharves began in that year. The antebellum port shipped cotton and cottonseed oil, with less important quantities of sugar, molasses, cattle, hides, and pecans, while Galveston finance and commission businesses supported the region's agriculture and commerce. Exports to foreign countries exceeded a million dollars in 1839, and in 1856 included 4,590 hogsheads of sugar and 7,878 barrels of molasses. The city's development and importance is measured by the fact that Galveston had the only legitimate labor unions active in Texas before the Civil War. Galveston itself soon developed a sophisticated and cosmopolitan society. Fleeing the revolutions in Europe, large numbers of immigrants began to arrive at the port in the 1840s and 1850s. Copies of the early Texas Almanac, printed at Galveston, served as Bibles for the new citizens. Since the city was usually the first Texas port of entry and received United States and foreign news before other places, it had two newspapers by 1838. The Galveston News, the earliest Texas newspaper still published in 1995, also had a considerable circulation on the mainland. Major construction in the city occurred in the 1850s, and German immigrants skilled in trades helped to construct many of the city's architectural landmarks. Growth declined, however, with the first yellow fever epidemic in 1839, a second wave in 1844, and six outbreaks from 1847 to 1867. A girls' school, Galveston University, the Female Collegiate Institution (Galveston Seminary), and the University of St. Mary's opened at Galveston between 1838 and 1854, and early efforts to educate the poor began in 1855. County participants in the Mexican War included the Galveston Riflemen in the first Regiment of Texas Infantry, the Guards, Fusiliers, Artillery, and Coast Guards. The Wigfall Guards were Irish, the Turner Rifles Germans. The inauguration of a ferry service from Virginia Point to Eagle Grove on Galveston Island improved transportation in 1838, but rail transportation soon replaced water transport. The Galveston, Houston and Henderson Railroad was chartered in 1853 and completed to Houston in 1859. A fourteen-mile canal constructed in 1857 connected Oyster Creek, West Bay, and the Brazos River, and ultimately became part of the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The first bridge from Galveston Island to the mainland was completed in 1859.

When Texas joined the Union, Galveston was the largest city in Texas, with a population of 3,500. By the eve of the Civil War, however, the county had only nine manufacturing establishments, and Houston had begun to overshadow Galveston as the state's largest port. Houston drew investment away from Galveston and competed for cotton traffic from the interior. Though as late as 1860 two-thirds of Texas cotton was shipped from Galveston and exports totaled eleven million dollars, Houston ultimately became the central railroad terminal and shipping center of Texas.

Slavery in Galveston County began before 1820, when Laffite and Aury pursued the slave trade by seizing slave ships headed for the West Indies or the United States. By 1850, when slave markets operated at Galveston, the county's population included 3,785 whites, 30 free blacks, and 714 slaves; ten years later the population had increased to 6,707 whites and 1,520 slaves, but only 2 free blacks remained. An illegal slave trade developed by the Civil War, and debate over a law forbidding the importation of African slaves in the 1850s became a crucial issue in the county. Secession split the leading families. Though the German population was generally Unionist, the county ultimately voted in favor of the Confederacy. During the ensuing war a number of Galveston county military groups supported the Confederate cause, including the Galveston Artillery, organized in 1840, the Galveston Rifles, and the JOLOs, a militia group of ship captains who watched the harbor for warships. The blockade of Southern ports was extended to Texas in July 1861, and Galveston was captured by Northern forces in 1862. The first recorded use of a railroad car for mobile artillery occurred when Galvestonians defending the harbor mounted a heavy gun on the railroad track and pushed it along while firing on ships. Nonetheless, despite fortifications, the port proved indefensible. Galveston Island homes were closed up, and people and warehouses moved to the mainland. Thomas William House and William Marsh Riceq were among those who moved their headquarters to Houston. Declining cotton prices decreased the value of slaves, and many were placed by their owners on inland plantations. Though Confederate military and naval forces under Gen. John B. Magruder recaptured the city at the battle of Galveston, a yellow fever epidemic in 1864 left it forsaken. On June 19, 1865 (Juneteenth) Union major general Gordon Granger landed at Galveston, raised a flag symbolizing the restoration of Union control, and proclaimed freedom for the slaves.

Owing to its location and strong Union faction, Galveston County got through Reconstruction more smoothly than some other counties, though occupation forces remained until 1870. A significant concentration of military forces was headquartered at Galveston, including four white infantry companies and one black infantry company. Citizens clashed with white soldiers of the Seventeenth Infantry in 1866, and in 1867 the local police force was discharged and replaced with African Americans and others. By 1868, however, as troops were reassigned to the frontier, only two white infantry companies remained. E. M. Gregory, assistant Freedmen's Bureau commissioner for Texas, established a bureau headquarters in the Galveston customhouse on September 5, 1865. With tuition eliminated and eight bureau teachers active in Galveston city schools, school attendance increased by 400 percent in 1867, despite the schools' poor condition and the return of yellow fever in that year. The county's black population increased as blacks from Northern cities flowed into the state. The first black newspaper printed in Texas, the Representative was published by editor and proprietor Richard Nelson at Galveston from 1870 to June 1872. Black political involvement began when George T. Ruby served as county representative to the Constitutional Convention of 1868-69. Norris W. Cuney served as state sergeant-at-arms in 1871 and had strong influence on party control in the 1880s and 1890s. Galveston businesses revived, and the port city's population nearly doubled within a year after the war. With removal of the blockade and reestablishment of the customhouse in 1866, exports for shipment to foreign countries poured in, and a building boom began. By 1867 Galveston educational facilities included a Catholic college, a convent school, a German Lutheran school, an English commercial school, a male academy, three female schools, and the newly established Galveston Medical College. Efforts to establish a public school system in the county began in 1870, when 2,478 white and 631 black children enrolled. Trade resumed, and by 1867 total exports from the port amounted to almost $23 million; domestic trade amounted to a third more than exports. On the mainland, residents produced vegetables, raised stock, and ran businesses, while Bolivar Peninsula residents harvested oysters and raised Sea Island cotton until the 1880s. In 1870 the county population included 12,053 white and 3,236 black residents. The county received an economic boost in 1873 when the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway bypassed Houston to avoid a yellow fever epidemic, the Mallory line established service to New York, and cotton traders organized the Galveston Cotton Exchange. By 1874 Galveston, at that time the "New York of the Gulf," had become the state banking center and the site of numerous wholesale houses. Ninety-one manufacturing establishments operating in 1870 were joined before the close of the century by flour mills, cotton, woolen textile, and bagging mills, an iron foundry, a rope factory, and other manufacturers. Exports increased from $14.8 million in 1870 to more than $26.6 million in 1881, briefly interrupted by a longshoremen's strike in 1877. Foreign cotton exports in 1875 totaled 233,496 bales, up from 16,417 in 1866.

In 1880 Galveston was still the largest city in Texas, with 530 businesses, 147 saloons, 10 hotels, and a combined wholesale and retail trade valued at $30 million. That year the port shipped 490,921 bales of cotton and received almost a half million dollars in imports. The county population of 24,121 included 5,586 blacks, 6,135 Germans, and significant numbers of English, French, Italians, Scots, and Irish. Farmers on Bolivar Peninsula grew watermelons, truck crops, and livestock from the 1880s to the 1930s, when most farming ceased there. The 1880 census reported 164 farms with holdings of 8,323 beef cattle and 901 dairy cows. Manufacturing had nearly doubled over the previous decade; in 1880, 172 establishments employed 649 workers and produced products valued at over $2 million. Transportation improvements continued to promote county growth throughout the 1880s and 1890s. The Galveston and Western (Little Susie) Railway on Galveston Island was completed, and construction of the Electric Pavilion, an elaborate beach bathhouse designed by Nicholas J. Clayton, marked the beginning of a growing resort industry on the coast. Congressional legislation in 1890 for completion of Galveston's deepwater port benefited numerous new inland factories. The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston opened in 1891. By the end of the decade, a wagon bridge had been built to the mainland, and C. J. and N. C. Jones's Gulf and Inter-State Railway, chartered in 1894, linked Bolivar Point and Beaumont. The line prospered until after 1910, when Houston, Corpus Christi, and Beaumont took over a large part of Galveston's tonnage. Construction of Fort Crockett and United States Coast Guard installations at Fort San Jacinto and a second Fort Travis further stimulated local growth.

Fortunes were reversed temporarily, if catastrophically, when the Galveston hurricane of 1900 killed thousands of people and destroyed much of the city. Recovery was swift, however, and by 1910 citizens had developed the commission form of city government, constructed a seawall, and raised the grade throughout the city. Construction of Hotel Galvez in 1911 foreshadowed growing tourism in the county. At the same time, Galveston took on a new role as a port of entry. When the federal government replaced state administrations in processing immigrants at the turn of the century, efforts began to redirect the flow of immigration from the Northeast to Texas. Pelican Island became federal property, and the government constructed an immigration center and quarantine station there. In the Northeast, Jacob H. Schiff presided over the Galveston Movement, which tried to offset Taft administration efforts to restrict immigration. Between 1906 and 1914 nearly 50,000 immigrants arrived at Galveston, including Bohemians, Moravians, Galicians, Austrians, Romanians, Swiss, English, Poles, Italians, Dutch, and some 10,000 Jews. By 1915 Galveston was considered a "second Ellis Island." The flow of immigration ceased in World War I, and the immigration center was demolished in 1972.

Galveston County, Texas
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Galveston County Court Records

See Also Texas Land Records, Marriage Records, Court & Probate Records

Galveston County Vital Records

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Galveston County Census Records

See Also Research In Census Records & Statewide Records that exist for Texas

Galveston County Maps & Atlases

See Also Research In State Map Collections

Galveston County Military Records

See Also Military Records in Texas

Galveston County Tax Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

Galveston County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other Texas Genealogical Addresses

Galveston County Church & Cemeteries

See Also Church & Cemetery Records in Texas

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

Extended History

Galveston County, Texas History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Galveston County Court Records

See Also Texas Land Records, Marriage Records, Court & Probate Records

Galveston County Vital Records

See Also Vital Records in Texas

Galveston County Census Records

See Also Research In Census Records & Statewide Records that exist for Texas

Galveston County Maps & Atlases

See Also Research In State Map Collections

Galveston County Military Records

See Also Military Records in Texas

Galveston County Tax Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

Galveston County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other Texas Genealogical Addresses

Galveston County Church & Cemeteries

See Also Church & Cemetery Records in Texas

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

Extended History

Galveston County, Texas
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy