HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

Ezekiel Smith

Seguin, Guadalupe County, Texas

Marker Inscription

A soldier in the Army of Texas in the Mier Expedition, 1842; born in Virginia; died in Seguin, Texas, October 28,1854.

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Ezekiel Smith, a Virginia native, marched with the Army of Texas in the 1842 Mier Expedition, a bold but disastrous raid into Mexico that ended in capture and the infamous "black bean" lottery of death for many Texians. Smith survived to die in Seguin in 1854. His marker preserves the memory of an ordinary soldier caught up in one of the young republic's most harrowing episodes.

Why it matters

The Mier Expedition exposed the perils of the Texas-Mexico borderland in the republic era, a tension that would soon draw the United States into the Mexican-American War.

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Related people

  • ยท Ezekiel Smith

Related events

  • ยท Mier Expedition

Themes & tags

Military & WartimeFrontier HistoryMemorial

Nearby & related markers

Claiborne West

Seguin, TX

Born in Tennessee in 1803, Claiborne West threw himself into the founding of a new republic: he served as a delegate to the conventions of 1832 and 1835, sat on the provisional government's council, and on March 2, 1836, signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. He fought as a soldier and served in the Congress of the Republic of Texas before his death in 1866. Texas erected this Star-and-Wreath grave marker in his honor in 1962.

Jonathan Douglas

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Born in Georgia in 1799, Jonathan Douglas fought for Texas independence as a private in Captain Splane's company at the Battle of San Jacinto, the 1836 victory that secured the Republic of Texas. He and his wife Nancy lived out their lives in the Seguin area, where this marker honors their memory.

Timothy Pickering Jones

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Timothy Pickering Jones entered Texas on his twenty-first birthday in 1835 and promptly took up arms as an officer in the Texas War for Independence. His long soldiering life spanned three conflicts: he captained a company in the Mexican War and later commanded the Sixth Tennessee Regiment as a Confederate colonel in 1861. He died in Texas in 1904, and the state erected this Confederate-style marker over his grave in 1962.