Arthur Stilwell Smith - Port Arthur, TX
Posted by: 
WalksfarTX
N 29° 53.172 W 093° 55.105
15R E 411318 N 3306529
Marker in the street divider of DeQueen Blvd.
Waymark Code: WMZY9M
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 01/22/2019
Views: 0
There used to be a cemetery here, but all that remains is this one marker.
IN MEMORY
ARTHUR STILWELL SMITH
FIRST BIRTH FIRST DEATH
IN PORT ARTHUR TEXAS
MAY 1896
SPARKS SETTLEMENT CEMETERY
--------------
ERECTED BY
PORT ARTHUR TEEN CANTEEN
1948
Historical Marker
John and Melinda Sparks and their family came to southeast Texas from Tennessee in 1838. They settled on the Jeremiah Mixon headright on Lake Sabine and later set aside land for a family burial ground. The land was acquired by the Port Arthur Land Company in 1896. Although Melinda and John Sparks, along with family members and neighbors, were buried in the cemetery, all that remains to mark the site is a monument erected in 1948 in memory of a ten-day-old child, Arthur Stilwell Smith, who was born and died in May 1896.