Smith-McCrery Home
Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built in 1880, this house originally was the residence of Dr. John R. Smith, who served as the mayor of Corsicana from 1883 until 1885. During his term of office, Smith organized the volunteer fire department and helped Navarro County set up a poor farm at Petty's Chapel, where prisoners without money could work off their fines. In 1898 the home was purchased by Mrs. A. W. McCrery, a widow who brought her ten daughters and her mother-in-law to live here. The house remained in the McCrery family until 1967.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1880, this house was first home to Dr. John R. Smith, mayor of Corsicana in the mid-1880s, who organized the town's volunteer fire department and set up a county poor farm where the fineless could work off their debts. In 1898 the widowed Mrs. A. W. McCrery bought the home and filled it with her ten daughters and her mother-in-law. The McCrery family kept the house until 1967.
Why it matters
The home joins the civic reforms of a Gilded Age mayor to the story of a widow raising a large family on her own, two faces of a growing Texas town.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1880, Corsicana was a growing county seat in Navarro County, on the rich farmland of the Blackland Prairie. Railroads had reached this part of Texas in the 1870s, linking local cotton farms to distant markets and bringing new residents, new businesses and new money to town.
The years after Reconstruction were a time of civic growth in Texas towns. Communities that had been little more than crossroads began building courthouses, churches and fine homes, and they started organizing the public services a modern town needed. Fire protection was one of the most urgent of these, because wooden buildings and open flames made fire a constant threat.
Counties were also working out how to care for the poor and deal with people who couldn't pay their debts. Across the United States in the 1800s, many counties ran "poor farms": publicly run farms where people with nowhere else to go, and sometimes people who owed fines, could live and work.
People & events
The house was built in 1880 for Dr. John R. Smith, a physician who went on to serve as Corsicana's mayor from 1883 to 1885. In that short term he left a lasting mark on the town. He organized Corsicana's volunteer fire department, giving the town an organized defense against one of the greatest dangers of the age.
Smith also helped Navarro County set up a poor farm at Petty's Chapel. There, prisoners who had no money could work off their fines instead of staying in jail. It was a practical answer to a real problem, and it shows how local officials of the period dealt with poverty and justice with the tools they had.
In 1898 the house began a second chapter. Mrs. A. W. McCrery, a widow, bought it and moved in with her ten daughters and her mother-in-law. Picture the household: three generations of women under one roof, run by a mother raising a very large family without a husband. The McCrery family kept the home for nearly seventy years, until 1967.
Its place in the American story
The Smith-McCrery Home tells two American stories in one building. The first is about the civic reforms that small towns carried out in the late 1800s. Volunteer fire companies and county poor farms were built town by town across the country, by local leaders like Dr. Smith, and they were the basic machinery of community life.
The second story is about women's lives, which history books often skip. Widows in this era faced real financial and social challenges, yet many kept households together and raised large families on their own. Mrs. McCrery buying a home and filling it with ten daughters and her mother-in-law is a reminder that women owned property, ran households and held families together in Gilded Age America.
The house's long life in the McCrery family, stretching from the 1890s into the late 1960s, shows how a single home can carry a family across most of a century of change.
If you visit
This is a historic residence, so enjoy it from the street and respect the privacy of anyone who may live there. Look at the house as an example of how prosperous Corsicana families lived around 1880, and think about how its rooms must have changed when eleven women and girls moved in.
As you stand there, imagine the two very different households: a doctor-mayor busy with fire brigades and county business, and later a widow raising ten daughters with her mother-in-law's help.
Corsicana makes a rewarding stop on a drive through North Central Texas, with a historic downtown and many older homes to explore on foot. Pair this marker with a walk through the surrounding neighborhoods to get a feel for the town Dr. Smith once governed.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · John R. Smith
- · A. W. McCrery
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Corsicana Public Library
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Georgia native Dr. Samuel Wistar Johnson began his medical career in Atlanta before settling in Corsicana, where he became a respected physician and was elected mayor in 1900. During his term the city gained a public library, spurred by its women's clubs, and Johnson also had a hand in Corsicana's pioneering oil industry. He later moved to Dallas, died there in 1922, and is buried in Corsicana.
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