Site of the Home of George Washington Smyth_Frances Grigsby Smyth
Jasper, Jasper County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site of the Home of George Washington Smyth (1803-1866) and his wife Frances Grigsby Smyth (1809-1888). George Washington Smyth signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, assisted in drafting the constitution, commissioner to run boundary between Texas and the United States, member of the Texas Congress, commissioner of the General Land Office, member of the United States Congress, delegate to the Texas Constitutional Convention of 1866. Mrs. Smyth was a devoted wife, a loving mother, a staunch friend, loved by all. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This site marks the home of George Washington Smyth, one of the founding figures of the Republic of Texas. Smyth signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, helped draft the constitution, ran the boundary line between Texas and the United States, and served in the Texas Congress, the U.S. Congress, and the General Land Office. He and his wife Frances lived here through the turbulent decades of Texas independence, statehood, and civil war.
Why it matters
It anchors the story of Texas's transformation from Mexican province to independent republic to American state in the life of one of the men who literally signed it into being.
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Related people
- · George Washington Smyth
- · Frances Grigsby Smyth
Related events
- · Signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Beech Grove Baptist Church
Jasper, TX
Baptist worship reached this corner of Jasper County as early as the 1850s at Allen's Chapel, on the homestead of pioneer George W. Smyth. As the Beech Grove community grew, settlers built a combined church and school in 1875 and formally organized the congregation, holding baptisms in nearby Sandy Creek into the 1950s. Fire, relocation, and rebuilding carried the church through a series of sanctuaries across more than a century.
Little Hope Cemetery
Jasper, TX
This graveyard began in sorrow on land granted to pioneer settler Samuel Goode in 1838, when his wife Frances was buried here in 1844. Samuel joined her two decades later, and their unmarked graves lie among the earliest burials in what grew into a community cemetery. The oldest marked stones date to 1884, and the grounds also hold victims of the influenza and diphtheria epidemics that swept East Texas in the early 1900s. Little Hope Cemetery remains a quiet witness to the settlers who built Jasper County.
Norsworthy-Kellie Homestead, "Glorianna"
Jasper, TX
Jasper County pioneer Ehud Norsworthy bought 405 acres here in 1859 and built a homestead complete with house, barn, smokehouse, well, and outbuildings. After his death in 1864, his widow Sara married Confederate veteran Edwin Irwin Kellie — founder of the "Jasper News-Boy" and later a riverboat captain — who named the place "Glorianna." The family worked the land until abandoning it around 1900.
Little Hope Primitive Baptist Church
Jasper, TX
As Anglo settlers pushed into the East Texas Piney Woods in the late 1830s, traveling Methodist and Baptist preachers held services in a rough building that doubled as church and schoolhouse. A new structure went up in 1890, and the Little Hope Primitive Baptist Church was formally organized in 1893 under Elder Durham Richardson. Locals affectionately nicknamed the whole settlement "Seed Tick."