Pioneer Smith Brothers
Cooper, Delta County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Tall, strong men who helped to carve Delta County out of Texas frontier. Benjamin, Charles, Gilford and Mira J. Smith came to Texas from Arkansas before or during the 1840s. They obtained from heirs title to the Moses Williams land grant, patented 1849, and surveyed by Major George W. Stell. After 1853 several generations of the Smith family lived here. The brothers were each 6 feet, 4 inches or taller and weighed over 250 pounds. they cut logs and built their cabins with puncheon (split-log) floors, riven-board roofs and homemade furniture. Instead of nails, wooden pegs were used; instead of glass windows, board shutters. Chimneys were of black clay mud plastered over sticks. Bear meat was the main food, obtained by hunting with flintlock rifles in such dangerous places as Jernigan Thicket, 2 miles west. Charles Smith kept bees, and was known as "Honey." Mira J. Smith was a key man in settling of Delta County, because he was an early blacksmith. His first son, Moses, became a tanner; the second son, Henry, a blacksmith. The women of the four families carded cotton and wool, and spun, wove and sewed clothing. Young Moses Smith also made men's buckskin suits. Grant has produced over $1,000,000 worth of cotton. Marker sponsored by Lina M. and Melvin W. Smith, Margueritta and Ernest O. Smith
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Smith brothers—Benjamin, Charles, Gilford, and Mira J.—came from Arkansas in the 1840s and helped hew Delta County out of the raw Texas frontier. Famously large men, they raised log cabins with puncheon floors and wooden pegs instead of nails, hunted bear for meat in the dangerous Jernigan Thicket, and supplied the settlement with essential trades like blacksmithing and tanning while the women spun, wove, and clothed their families. Theirs is a vivid portrait of self-reliant frontier life before towns and stores took hold.
Why it matters
Families like the Smiths are the human machinery of American westward settlement—showing how frontier communities were quite literally built by hand, one skill and one cabin at a time.
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Related people
- · Benjamin Smith
- · Charles "Honey" Smith
- · Gilford Smith
- · Mira J. Smith
- · Moses Williams
Themes & tags
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