Baytown

Baytown, a highly industrialized city of oil refining, rubber, chemical, and carbon black plants, is on Interstate Highway 10 and State Highway 146, thirty miles east of downtown Houston in southeastern Harris and western Chambers counties. Among its first settlers were Nathaniel Lynch, who in 1822 set up a ferry crossing at the junction of the San Jacinto River with Buffalo Bayou that is still in operation, and William Scott, one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred, who received a land grant in 1824. His two leagues and one labor of land, over 9,000 acres, covered most of the area of present Baytown. Near his home on San Jacinto (Scott's) Bay, a settlement grew to include a small store and a sawmill. It was called Bay Town.

Later area settlers included Ashbel Smith, who in 1847 purchased a plantation named Evergreen on Tabbs Bay. He lived there for forty-nine years. Also living in the area for a time were Mrs. Anson (Mary Smith McCrory) Jones, David G. Burnet, and Sam Houston. At the outbreak of the Civil War Smith organized a local unit called the Bayland Guards for Confederate service. They later became part of the Second Texas Regiment and saw action at Shiloh and Vicksburg.