DUANE
Duane's take
The way the marker tells it, here's what happened at this bend along the Jasper County waterline. Somewhere back in the question-marked years around 1775, a man named Benjamin Richardson came into the world. By 1830 he had made his way to Texas as a settler in the de Zavala colony, and he planted himself and his family on a high piece of ground above the water — a place that would carry his name for years to come: Richardson's Bluff.
Now Benjamin and his sons ran a ferry there, and most days that was probably a useful, quiet sort of operation. But then came 1836, and quiet was the last thing Texas had to offer. Santa Anna was pressing in, and the civilian population of Texas did what terrified people do — they ran.
History calls it the Runaway Scrape, and that name does not flatter it, because it was desperate and it was real. Families were fleeing toward the United States any way they could manage, and standing between them and safety was a whole lot of water. That Richardson ferry, the marker says, was of great service in those days — Benjamin and his sons working the crossing, moving frightened people through.
Richardson himself, born around 1775 with a question mark, was gone around 1848, another question mark. The bluff outlasted him, of course, as bluffs do. After that, a family with a millsite arrived by 1852, and the place got itself a new name: Ford's Bluff.
Names on the Texas map have a way of shifting with whoever's working the land. Then 1894 rolls around and a man named Mannie Cox opens a local shingle mill on the site. That mill changes hands in 1902 — sold to the Kirby Lumber Company.
Kirby, not content with just owning the mill, builds a whole sawmill operation by 1904, and with a new sawmill comes, apparently, the right to bestow a new name. And here is where the story takes a turn you might not see coming. They didn't name it for a railroad baron or a land speculator or any of the men who'd been buying and selling the place.
They named it for Miss Eva Dale — a teacher. A teacher at the Southeast Texas Male and Female College over in Jasper. The ferry is long gone.
The shingle mill is long gone. But the name Miss Eva Dale earned on this bluff in Jasper County — that one stuck.
What the marker says
Homesite of Benjamin Richardson (1775?-1848?), an 1830 de Zavala colony settler. With his sons, Richardson operated a ferry that was of great service, especially in 1836 Runaway Scrape, aiding civilians as they fled toward the U.S. in fear of Santa Anna. Place later was renamed Ford's Bluff, for family with millsite here in 1852. In 1894 Mannie Cox opened a local shingle mill that was sold in 1902 to Kirby Lumber Company. When Kirby built sawmill in 1904, the site was renamed in honor of Miss Eva Dale, a teacher at the Southeast Texas Male and Female College in Jasper. (1972)