Elisha Everett Lott
Winona, Smith County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(February 24, 1820 - January 17, 1864) Moved to Harrison County, Texas in 1840. Elected to the Republic of Texas Congress in 1842, he helped open this area of Texas for settlement. He moved here in 1845, and in 1846 was instrumental in the organization of Smith County and the selection of Tyler as the county seat. He helped promote steamboat navigation of the Sabine River and in 1853 was elected to the State Senate. A Confederate veteran of the Civil War, Lott died at his Starrville home in 1864 and is buried near this site in the Lott Family Cemetery.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Elisha Everett Lott came to Harrison County in 1840 and was elected to the Congress of the Republic of Texas in 1842, working to open East Texas to settlement. After moving to the area in 1845, he helped organize Smith County in 1846 and choose Tyler as its seat, promoted steamboat navigation on the Sabine River, and won a state senate seat in 1853. A Confederate veteran, he died at his Starrville home in 1864.
Why it matters
Lott's life traces the transition from the Republic of Texas to statehood, and the frontier work of organizing counties and opening rivers to commerce.
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Related people
- · Elisha Everett Lott
Related events
- · Organization of Smith County
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Head of Navigation on the Sabine River: Belzora Landing
Winona, TX
From the 1850s until the railroads arrived in the 1870s, Belzora Landing was the head of navigation on the Sabine River and a busy port serving Tyler and East Texas. Settlers here, like those in the eastern states, turned to rivers for transportation, and the well-watered Sabine let light steamboats ascend to Belzora for several months a year; in dry seasons, goods waited on barges for a rising freshet to carry them downstream. Alongside its landing and ferry on the Dallas-to-Shreveport Post Road, the town supported a dozen businesses, a post office, and a church-schoolhouse—until the railroads bypassed it and it faded into a ghost town.
Walters' Bluff Ferry
Big Sandy, TX
Before bridges spanned the Sabine, travelers crossed by ferry, and this one—started before 1849 by Texas Revolution veteran Robert Walters—carried settlers between Upshur and Smith counties for decades. Its posted 1860 rates, from fifty cents for an ox-drawn wagon to a nickel a head for loose livestock, sketch a vivid picture of frontier travel. The nearby town of Florence has since disappeared, and the ferry gave way to a bridge in 1903.
Milburn-Gary House
Lindale, TX
As Anglo settlers filled the Gum Springs area of Smith County in the 1850s, the growing community took the name Starrville and became a stop on the Dallas–Shreveport freight route, with a post office, school, Masonic lodge, and Baptist church. The Rev. Williamson Milburn, the church's pastor, built this house in 1855 of hand-picked, knot-free lumber over a peg-set foundation with solid oak walls. Later owned by the Gary family, who moved it in 1900 for better water, it was relocated once more in 1995 to preserve it.
James Calhoun Hill
Tyler, TX
Migrating from Alabama in 1840, James Calhoun Hill led the first permanent settlers into the future Smith County and helped run its boundaries and plat the county seat at Tyler in 1846. He prospered as a surveyor and planter in the 1850s, but by the Civil War's end in 1865 he was blind and much reduced in means. Still, in 1874 he donated land to bring a railroad into the county, and he and his wife Rebecca raised eleven children.