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.
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Related people
- · John R. Smith
- · A. W. McCrery
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Corsicana Public Library
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Corsicana's women's clubs opened the city's first public library in 1901, and their efforts soon won a Carnegie grant that built a permanent home in 1906, complete with an auditorium for community gatherings. Mattie Houston served as head librarian for more than three decades. By 1967 the collection had outgrown its walls and moved to a new building.
Samuel Wistar Johnson, M. D.
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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.
Annie Carpenter Love
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Tennessee-born Annie Carpenter came to Navarro County as a child in 1876, steeped in family stories of pioneer forebears. She taught school before marrying William F. Love in 1901, and in the 1930s she set out to preserve local heritage, gathering artifacts for a museum room at the county courthouse. In 1933 she published her "History of Navarro County," grounded in research and interviews with aging pioneers.
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