A Guide to the Noah Smithwick Papers, 1835-1922
Descriptive Summary | ||
| Creator | Smithwick, Noah | |
| Title | Noah Smithwick Papers | |
| Dates: | 1835-1922 | |
| Extent | 28 items | |
| Language | Materials are in English. | |
| Repository | Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin | |
Biographical Note
Noah Smithwick (1808-1899) was born in North Carolina, trained as a blacksmith, and moved to Texas in 1827. Legal problems drove him from Stephen F. Austin's colony, but he returned to Texas by the time of the Texas Revolution and participated in the Battle of Concepción. Moving to Bastrop, he was soon forced to leave in the face of the Mexican Army during the "Runaway Scrape," eventually arriving at San Jacinto after the decisive battle. With Mexican forces defeated, Smithwick returned to Bastrop and resumed his trade as a blacksmith and gunsmith, and he married Thurza Blakey in 1839. The couple lived in Travis, Williamson, and Burnet Counties, but Smithwick's Union sympathies and secessionist death threats drove the family out of Confederate Texas in 1861. They moved west to Southern California, where he died in Santa Ana in 1899.
Scope and Contents
Correspondence, reminiscences, land deed, notice of sale, broadside, and newspaper clippings. Papers concern Smithwick's reminiscences of Texas between 1827 and 1861, and his book The Evolution of a State: or Recollections of Old Texas Days.
Related Material
Book: Smithwick, Noah. The Evolution of a State: or Recollections of Old Texas Days. Austin, Tex., The Steck Company, 1935. |
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Administrative Information
Cite as
Noah Smithwick Papers, 1835-1922, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin
Detailed Description of the Collection