Bead-Cheeseland Silver Blue Gold Patterned Donut TB

Please drop this item in rural OR Premium Member Only caches.  Do not place it in an urban cache or abandon it at a caching event.  Transport the bug in the original plastic bag for as long as the bag lasts; the bag keeps the trackable clean, protects the number and prevents tangling with other items.  Otherwise, take the travel bug anywhere you wish.  No permission is needed to leave the U.S.

Travel bug photos are appreciated.  I will re-post them here, where they can be seen by other cachers.

This is one of a series of large beads obtained from different places and converted into travel bugs.  They are named for Texas towns with interesting names or histories.  Much of the text is from the online Handbook of Texas or texasescapes.com.

Cheeseland was in northern Angelina County.  Jacob Ferguson Humphrey, a native of Wales, moved to the site in 1844 and built a log cabin and stockade to protect his family and horses. The mail road from Alto to Homer and Rusk ran in front of Humphrey's house.  In 1854, a post office opened with Humphrey as postmaster, but closed in 1860.  Humphrey offered Wenzel Hillenkamp and his family a free thirty-acre tract of land across the road.  Hillenkamp, who had come from Prussia to escape a three-year period of compulsory military training.  He built a combination house, coach station, post office and a whiskey and general store.  At the store he sold Mrs. Hillenkamp's cheese, from which the settlement took its name.  In 1860, the post office was reestablished with Hillenkamp as postmaster and named Cheeseland.  Hillenkamp remained postmaster until he was removed by Reconstruction and replaced by Martha Buckalew.  He was later reinstated as postmaster and served until 1886, when the post office and store were moved to Wells in Cherokee County.