Jefferson Methodists Send Mexican Silver to New York to Cast into Church Bell, 1854 Jefferson, Texas, the county seat of Marion County, is rightly proud of its history. During the steamboat era, it was one of the most prosperous cities in Texas. Its connections via Big Cypress Bayou, Caddo Lake, and the Red River to New Orleans made it a bustling port city and the entrepot for immigrants to northeastern Texas. Jefferson was also an early Methodist center. The present church dates to the steamboat era and there is a fascinating tale related to the church. As related on the church website, in 1854 the members desired a bell for the church and wanted one with a “silvery tone.” Bells of the era were often cast from molten metals, and the composition of the metal alloy was crucial to the tone of the bell. Jeffereson Methoists collected $1500 in “Mexican dollars” and wanted the silver in those coins to be part of the bell metal. In order to ensure that the coin metal was actually used in the bell, it is reported that J. C. Murphy accompanied the coins to New Orleans to insure that that they would properly laded on the ship to New York and the Menneley Bell Foundry. Another version of the tale reports that a committee accompanied the coins. In either case, the steamboat trip to New Orleans would have been relatively simple. Regular passage from New Orleans to Jefferson was common in 1854, thanks to Captain Henry Shreve’s clearing the raft of logs on the Red River in 1836. The clearing of the raft was the basis for naming the new major river port in his honor—Shreveport. It had the secondary effect of moving much of the traffic of Nachitoches upstream to that new city. The steamboat era in Texas was relatively brief. Railroads were the future and in the railroad era Marshall displaced Jefferson as the main entrepot to northeastern Texas, The reader will be glad to know that the bell was delivered and still peals its silvery tones over the historic city of Jefferson.