George Webster Smith
Jefferson, Marion County, Texas
Marker Inscription
George Webster Smith was a former Union soldier whose beliefs set off a chain of dramatic events in the tense atmosphere of post-Civil War Texas. Born in New York in 1841, Smith moved to Michigan early in his life. When the Civil War started, he joined his uncles in the 123rd Regiment of the New York Infantry. After the Civil War, Smith moved with an uncle to Jefferson, where he acquired a reputation as an ardent Republican and became heavily involved in local Reconstruction efforts. Smith became active in politics, serving as a member of the voter registration board for Marion County, which was responsible for disenfranchising former Confederates. He was also elected as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1868, as well as the state Republican convention the same year. It was in 1868 that Smith became embroiled in an argument with Colonel R.P. Crump. This dispute led to a shooting incident in which two members of Crump’s party were wounded. Smith surrendered and was placed at this site in the calaboose, the city jail which opened in 1867. The mayor assured him he would be protected by guards, but on the evening of October 4, a group of about 70 disguised men disarmed the guards and assassinated Smith, as well as two freedmen. Because of the murders, the city of Jefferson came under martial law, and some officials, including the mayor, were replaced. Twenty-three men were brought to trial in 1869, with three convicted of murder and sentenced to life terms, and other convicted of lesser charges. Smith’s death was noteworthy as a symbol of the deep and often violent racial divide in Texas after the Civil War, and as the event that marked both the beginning of federal troop withdrawal from Jefferson and the end of the terror brought about by the Knights of the Rising Sun, the organization to which many of the accused belonged. (2006)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
George Webster Smith, a New York–born Union veteran, settled in Jefferson after the Civil War and became an ardent Republican, sitting on the board that disenfranchised former Confederates and serving as a delegate to the 1868 Constitutional Convention. After a shooting dispute in 1868, he was jailed in the city calaboose under a promise of protection—only to be dragged out and assassinated with two freedmen by some seventy disguised men, many tied to the Knights of the Rising Sun. The outrage brought martial law, and of twenty-three men tried, three were convicted of murder.
Why it matters
Smith's killing became a national symbol of Reconstruction-era racial and political violence in Texas, and marked a turning point in federal efforts to suppress terror in the region.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · George Webster Smith
- · R.P. Crump
Related events
- · Constitutional Convention of 1868
- · Assassination of George Webster Smith
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bishop College
Marshall, TX
Founded in 1881 by the Baptist Home Mission Society, Bishop College became Marshall's second historically Black college, funded by New York educator Nathan Bishop, his wife Caroline, and local Baptist ministers. Over the decades it taught more than twenty disciplines and trained ministers, and it fielded championship athletic teams. Martin Luther King Jr. addressed its 1960 commencement, and its students joined the sit-ins of the civil rights era before the campus relocated to Dallas; the school closed in 1988.
Melvin B. Tolson
Marshall, TX
Poet and professor Melvin B. Tolson taught at Wiley College from 1924 to 1947, where he built an award-winning debate team that packed venues and famously bested national champion USC in 1935. His students included future civil rights leaders James L. Farmer, Jr., Fred Lewis, and Heman Sweatt. A celebrated writer whose newspaper column chronicled African American life, Tolson later taught at Langston University and even served as the Oklahoma town's mayor.
James Leonard Farmer, Sr.
Marshall, TX
James Leonard Farmer, Sr. earned a doctorate from Boston University in 1918 and became a Methodist minister and scholar of philosophy and religion, teaching at Wiley College and other historically Black institutions across the South. A popular speaker and author, he pastored churches in Marshall, Texarkana, and Galveston. His son, James Farmer, Jr., grew up to found the Congress of Racial Equality and lead the civil rights movement.
H. B. Pemberton
Marshall, TX
Henry Bertram Pemberton, born in 1867, became the first college graduate of Wiley College in Marshall and devoted his life to Black education in a segregated Texas. Named principal of the Colored School in 1894 and given permission but no money for a new building, he borrowed on his own credit to raise a two-story schoolhouse that his community repaid. Over decades he expanded Marshall's Black schools, recruited qualified teachers, and helped charter the local NAACP; in 1940 thousands of petitioners had the high school he founded renamed in his honor.