Charles Frederick King

San Antonio, TX

Boston-born Samuel S. Smith rode with the Woll and Somervell expeditions of 1842, the volatile border campaigns that followed Mexican incursions into the young Republic of Texas. He lived until 1882 and is remembered here alongside his wife Sarah.

San Antonio, TX

Edward Miles arrived in Texas in 1829, when the region was still a far northern frontier of Mexico, and threw in with the Anglo colonists who would soon fight for independence. He was present at Anahuac and at San Jacinto, the decisive 1836 battle that won the Republic of Texas, then went on to serve in the frontier Indian conflicts, the Mexican-American War, and the Civil War. A Natchez-born settler who became prominent in civic life, his long career spans nearly every armed struggle that shaped nineteenth-century Texas.

San Antonio, TX

A North Carolina native who drifted west through Illinois and Missouri, John W. Smith came to Texas with Green DeWitt in 1826 and settled in San Antonio, where he became a leading merchant and political figure. He fought in the opening "affair at Gonzales," the storming of Bexar, and the siege of the Alamo, from which he served as a courier, and later at the Battle of the Salado. Smith became San Antonio's first mayor in 1837, held numerous offices, and served the Republic as a senator until his death in 1845.

San Antonio, TX

This Neo-Classical Revival residence was completed in 1909 for Gen. John Lapham Bullis, a New Yorker who spent much of his career on the Southwestern frontier. In 1873 Bullis took command of a company of Seminole Scouts whose skill at tracking raiders on the Texas border drew national attention. He lived in the house, designed by San Antonio architect Harvey Page, until his death in 1911; nearby Camp Bullis bears his name.