TEASELVILLE, TEXAS. Teaselville, also known as Loftin, is near the intersection of Farm roads 344 and 346, a mile east of Saline Bay and four miles west of Bullard in extreme southwestern Smith County. The area was inhabited by 1846, when the home of John Dewberry served as the voting place for local citizens. The community was founded in 1850, and in 1854 Colonel Dewberry built a new home near his old one, on land given to him by the state of Texas. It was the most lavish plantation house in the county. The Tyler-Palestine Road, which passed through Teaselville, ran from Tyler to the El Camino Real (see OLD SAN ANTONIO ROAD) and was the first public road planned by the County Commissioners Court. The community was, therefore, fairly accessible to early settlers. It was sometimes called Loftin for a prominent local family. With the advent of the Smith County railroad system in the 1870s, the community failed to prosper. The nearest line went through nearby Bullard, so goods and produce were sent there for shipping. The Lee Spring Baptist Church was organized nearby by 1892, and in 1900 the settlement was granted a post office called Loftin, with Albert Westberry as postmaster. The post office closed sometime before 1935. In 1936 the community included a collection of dwellings, two churches, the Loftin Cemetery, a factory, and the Eureka School, which that year had 176 white students and five teachers. Though county records show eighty-four black children of school age, there was no black school reported there. By 1947 the Eureka School had been consolidated into the Bullard school district, and the County Line (Southern) Baptist Church had moved into the school building. In 1973 the community included the cemetery, a factory, two other businesses, and a few scattered farms, and the Emerald Bay Airport was nearby. Teaselville by 1985 consisted of a few homes, a church, the Loftin Cemetery, and two businesses at the highway intersection. The population was 150 in 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Edward Clayton Curry, An Administrative Survey of the Schools of Smith County, Texas (M.Ed. thesis, University of Texas, 1938). Smith County Historical Society, Historical Atlas of Smith County (Tyler, Texas: Tyler Print Shop, 1965). Donald W. Whisenhunt, comp., Chronological History of Smith County (Tyler, Texas: Smith County Historical Society, 1983). Albert Woldert, A History of Tyler and Smith County (San Antonio: Naylor, 1948).

Vista K. McCroskey