Smith County
Tyler, Smith County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Formed from Nacogdoches County. Created April 11, 1846, organized July 13, 1846, named in honor of General James Smith. Pioneer soldier and statesman, friend of General Sam Houston, Thomas J. Rusk and J. Pinckney Henderson. Born September 10, 1792, died December 25, 1855. Buried with military honors at Henderson. Tyler, the county seat.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Carved from Nacogdoches County and organized in 1846, Smith County took its name from General James Smith, a soldier and statesman who counted Sam Houston, Thomas J. Rusk, and J. Pinckney Henderson among his friends. Tyler was chosen as the county seat, and Smith himself was buried with military honors at Henderson in 1855. The county's creation came just months after Texas joined the United States.
Why it matters
It captures the rapid organization of East Texas counties in the first years of American statehood, when Revolutionary-era leaders lent their names to a settling frontier.
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Related people
- · General James Smith
- · Sam Houston
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Wood-Verner Cemetery
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The Patterson Home
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This East Texas house began humbly as a dog-trot cabin raised before 1854, its open central breezeway a hallmark of Southern frontier building. Passing from pioneer settlers to the Patterson family in 1871, it was transformed in 1882 with a second story and fashionable Victorian trim, becoming the heart of a large working farm. For more than a century it sheltered the same family, a living record of how frontier cabins grew into gracious farmhouses as Texas prospered.
First Baptist Church of Tyler
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Founded in 1848 with just six charter members meeting in a log-cabin courthouse, this congregation summoned worshippers by blowing a horn in the young town of Tyler. Fire twice destroyed its buildings, in 1855 and again in 1882, before the congregation settled on North Bois d'Arc Street and dedicated a sanctuary in 1889. The present Beaux Arts church, with its massive columns and pedimented portico, rose in 1913, making this one of the oldest continuously existing Baptist churches in Texas.
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