Smithfield Cemetery
North Richland Hills, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Eli Smith (1848-79), for whose family the town of Smithfield is named, came from Missouri to Texas about 1859. In the early 1870s he donated part of his farm for the cemetery. The oldest marked grave is that of an infant, Mattie J. Brownfield, who died on Oct. 13, 1872. More than seventy-five graves, including that of Eli Smith, date from the 1870s. Pioneer physician Lilburn Howard Colley (b. 1843), for whom nearby Colleyville is named, was interred here in 1924. Numerous Civil War veterans, including men from both the Union and Confederate Armies, are also buried here.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This cemetery began in the early 1870s when Eli Smith — the namesake of Smithfield, who came from Missouri to Texas around 1859 — gave part of his farm for a burying ground. Its oldest marked grave, an infant's, dates to 1872, and more than seventy-five graves come from that first decade, including Smith's own. Among those laid to rest here are pioneer physician Lilburn Howard Colley, for whom Colleyville is named, and Civil War veterans from both Union and Confederate armies.
Why it matters
Its side-by-side Union and Confederate graves testify to how Texas frontier communities were settled by Americans who had fought on opposite sides of the Civil War.
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Related people
- · Eli Smith
- · Lilburn Howard Colley
- · Mattie J. Brownfield
Related events
- · American Civil War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Alfred Madison Hightower
N.Richland Hills, TX
Alfred M. Hightower arrived near Smithfield from Illinois in 1858 to ranch, and though he opposed secession, he cast his lot with the South once war broke out. As a Confederate mounted rifleman he fought at Elkhorn Tavern (Pea Ridge) in Arkansas, one of the largest battles west of the Mississippi. He tried Kansas in the 1870s before returning to ranch here until his death, leaving his name on a nearby street.
Dr. Lilburn Howard Colley
Colleyville, TX
Dr. L. H. Colley, a Union Army veteran of the Civil War, migrated with his wife from Missouri to Texas in 1880 and settled in the Bransford community in 1885, where he became a respected physician and school-district election official. When a grocery store opened near his home in 1914, Colley suggested naming the growing area Colleyville. The community he named eventually absorbed several neighboring settlements.
William Letchworth Hurst
Hurst, TX
Tennessee-born William "Uncle Billy" Hurst fought for the Confederacy in the 61st Tennessee Infantry, surrendered near Vicksburg to Grant in 1863, and spent the war's final stretch in Northern prison camps after his capture in Tennessee. In 1870 he joined a migration of Claiborne County families to Texas, where he prospered as a land speculator. When he granted a right-of-way to the Rock Island line in 1903, the railroad named its stop for him—and the town of Hurst grew up around it.
I. D. Parker Public Cemetery and Homestead
Hurst, TX
Isaac Duke Parker, son of the noted early Texas politician Isaac Parker, settled near this site with his family in 1853. He served as a Tarrant County commissioner before enlisting in the Confederate army during the Civil War, then took over the family homestead and cemetery around 1867. Near the end of his life he set aside the eastern half of the burial ground — with more than thirty graves — as a public cemetery.