Obedience Smith - Houston, TX
N 29° 44.484 W 095° 24.282
15R E 267438 N 3292552
A privately sponsored marker honoring Obedience Smith for her influence she and her descendants had on forming the state of Texas and Houston to what it is today.
Waymark Code: WMJAKP
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 10/20/2013
Views: 6
On the southeast corner of Lanier Middle School (AKA: Sidney Lanier Junior High School) a large plaque is mounted on a post in the front yard. The school is located at 2600 Woodhead St., Houston, TX 77098. The marker itself is located at or near the posted coordinates.
This sign of history resembles a Texas historical marker but is not placed by the Texas Historical Commission. Instead, this marker about the live and offspring of Obedience Smith is owned by and placed by The Winlow Place Civic Club. The marker reads:
WP
Winlow Place
Since 1923
Obedience Smith
(January 21, 1771 – March 1, 1847)
Obedience Smith was a pioneer of three American frontiers: Kentucky, Mississippi, and Texas. Newly widowed, she arrived in the Mexican state of Coahuila y Texas from Jackson, Mississippi just weeks before the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836. She had followed her son, Colonel Benjamin Fort Smith (1796-1841), Adjutant to General Sam Houston.
She received a land grant from the Republic of Texas in 1838 and chose 3,368 acres (5.26 square miles) of the league and a labor to commerce in downtown Houston near Lamar and Louisiana, extend west to River Oaks, south to Rice University, northeast to Wheeler at Crawford, and north to the place of beginning. Thus, “out of the Obedience Smith Survey” appears on thousands of inner-city titles now worth billions of dollars.
Obedience was the daughter of Elias Fort, leading deacon of the Particular Baptist churches in Edgecombe County, North Carolina and later in Robertson County, Tennessee. Her husband was Major David Smith (1753-1835), a Revolutionary War patriot, Indian fighter, and lumber mill owner in the Natchez and Cumberland Districts. She had eleven children, only four surviving her.
She was a founder of the First Baptist Church of Houston in 1841, and matriarch of the families of Judges John W.N.A. Smith and T.B.J. Hadley; Hiram George Runnels, Mississippi governor and later Texas state senator; Colonels Benjamin Franklin Terry and Thomas Saltus Lubbock of Civil War fame; Justice David Smith Terry, the “dueling judge” of California; Aurelia (Hadley) Mohl, suffragist and founder of the Texas Women’s Press Association; Margaret (Hadley) Foster, first librarian of the Houston Lyceum, forerunner of the Houston Public Library; and Mabel (Franklin) Smith-Astin, a founder of the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. Several Houston streets and three Texas counties are named for these family members.
Marker is the property of the Winlow Place Civic Club
Group that erected the marker: Winlow Place Civic Club
URL of a web site with more information about the history mentioned on the sign: [Web Link]
Address of where the marker is located. Approximate if necessary:
Lanier Middle School
2600 Woodhead Street
Houston, TX USA
77098
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Visit Instructions:
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