Benjamin F. Highsmith
Utopia, Uvalde County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Served in the Army of Texas, 1835-36 a Ranger under Capt. John C. Hays, a member of the Somervell Expedition, 1842 born in Missouri Sept. 11, 1817. Died Nov. 20, 1905. His wife, Elizabeth Turner Highsmith, born in Missouri March 22, 1836, died Oct. 7, 1900.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Benjamin F. Highsmith came to Texas as a young Missourian and threw himself into the fight for independence, serving in the Army of Texas in 1835–36 and later riding as a Ranger under the famed Captain John Coffee Hays. He joined the 1842 Somervell Expedition against Mexican forces and lived on into the twentieth century, a link to the founding generation of the Republic.
Why it matters
His life traces the arc of the Texas frontier itself — revolution, Ranger service, and the long westward push — carried by ordinary settlers who became its soldiers.
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Related people
- · Benjamin F. Highsmith
- · Elizabeth Turner Highsmith
- · John C. Hays
Related events
- · Somervell Expedition
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
William Ware
Utopia, TX
Born in 1800, William Ware brought his family to Montgomery County, Texas, in 1828 and threw himself into the fight for Texas independence, raising a military company that fought at the Siege of Bexar in 1835 and leading volunteers at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. Years later he pushed west into Sabinal Canyon, arriving in 1852 to build a cabin that became the seed of the settlement of Waresville. He died the next year and was buried in the cemetery there.
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In This Vicinity June 24, 1841, Captain John Coffee Hays
Utopia, TX
In June 1841, near this spot in the rugged hill country of the young Republic of Texas, Captain John Coffee Hays led a small company of Texas Rangers, aided by allied Mexican fighters under Captain Flores, in a sharp clash with a band of Comanche warriors. Such encounters were the grim, constant reality of a contested frontier where Rangers, settlers, and Comanche bands fought for control of the land. The State of Texas marked the site in 1936.
Site of Camp Sabinal
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