James Norman Smith
Cuero, DeWitt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
"Uncle Jimmy the Peacemaker." Son of Sgt. James Turner Smith, veteran of American Revolution. Born and educated in North Carolina. Lived for 32 years in Tennessee, where he taught James K. Polk, later a U.S. President. Taught first school in area now De Witt County, 1840 (year he came to Texas). Surveyed De Witt County; was first county clerk. Organized Presbyterian churches at Victoria, Hochheim, Clinton, Peebles Ranch, Mill Creek, Live Oak, and Cuero. Organized first Masonic Lodge in county. At 1857 political rally, introduced old Tennessee friend, Sam Houston.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
They called James Norman Smith "Uncle Jimmy the Peacemaker," and his long life stitched together much of early Texas. Educated in North Carolina and a teacher in Tennessee — where one of his pupils was the future president James K. Polk — he came to Texas in 1840 and taught the first school in what became DeWitt County. He then surveyed the county, served as its first clerk, organized Presbyterian churches across the region and its first Masonic lodge, and at an 1857 rally introduced his old Tennessee friend Sam Houston to the crowd.
Why it matters
Smith embodies the frontier institution-builder — teacher, surveyor, clerk, and church organizer — the kind of settler who quietly laid the civic foundations of a new Texas county.
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Related people
- · James Norman Smith
- · James K. Polk
- · Sam Houston
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Buchel Community and School
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Settlers reached this corner of DeWitt County as early as 1839, opening a school and post office within a few years of arrival. In 1894 the Cuero merchant and banker Otto Buchel donated land here for a community school first known as Oak View. When a new building rose in 1921 it took his name, and though the Buchel School closed its doors in 1950, the schoolhouse lived on as a community center. For generations the little school was where a farming neighborhood educated its children and gathered as a community.
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The farming community of Shiloh took shape around 1847 as families like the McBrides, Hamiltons, and Woods settled the DeWitt County land. Settlers organized a Methodist Episcopal church by 1851, built a sanctuary in 1852, and established Shiloh School in 1856, which served the area into the early twentieth century. The first burial in its cemetery, in 1857, was Montraville Woods, son of Texas patriot Zadock Woods; the renamed Woods Cemetery is all that survives of the vanished settlement.
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Hebron traces its beginnings to the 1840s, when the first wagon train of settlers reached the area and built their homes and a one-room log meeting house from the plentiful timber. The Hebron Missionary Baptist Church was formally organized in 1855 and still anchors the farming community, whose cemetery has received burials since 1867. A local school served the area into the early twentieth century.
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