county judge in 1828, appointed under the authority of the Acting Territorial Governor McCarty in Tallahassee. In 1839 he was a member of the Territorial Legislative Council. Legend has it that Mr. Bell, also considered to be the first settler of the county, disagreed with the names that were coming into use for places in the area. He met with locals (one of them named Simon Whitehurst, one of the few Revolutionary War veterans in Florida, buried in Jasper) and other friends, and decided to submit the name of "Jasper", in honor of Revolutionary War veteran William Jasper, to the territorial capitol in Tallahassee. There the name was registered and incorporated as documented in the Territorial Legislative Journal. In 1841 the Jasper Post Office was established, ending any discussion on names for the town. Florida became a state in 1845, and thirteen years later on March 2, 1858, the town's leaders incorporated the town of Jasper. The early history and specific makeup of Jasper is rather vague except for scant records that survived several courthouse fires in the late 1800s. What we do know is that the original town was built about a mile south of its current location, near the site of the present day Hamilton Correctional Institution. The original courthouse and a stockade stood where Evergreen Cemetery is located. The citizens fought Seminole raiding parties throughout the early periods, the last Seminole War ending in 1858. In 1861 the Civil War came to Jasper. The Jasper Blues ("I" Company 2nd Infantry CSA) was created from Jasper and county citizens. The unit rendezvoused west of Jacksonville and were shipped by train to Virginia, arriving on the day of the First Battle of Manassas. They were eventually made a part of the First Corps (Stonewall Jackson's) of the Army of Northern Virginia led by General Robert E. Lee. A school in Jasper was named in Lee's honor and is occupied today by the County School Board Offices. In 1865 the Savannah, Florida, and Western railway was completed, and a depot was built about a mile north of the town center. Businesses and homes migrated toward the railroad, and eventually the current town was established along that line. The town grew in earnest between 1890 and 1930 with a rich trade in turpentine, tobacco, cotton, and pine lumber. Jasper reached its pinnacle in the 1920s with a booming population of over