Dr. D. Port Smythe

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's the story of Dr. D. Port Smythe.

Born in 1824, this Alabama man would leave a mark on Texas medicine that nobody had left before him. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania, which was no small thing, and when the Civil War came he went to work as a surgeon for the Texas Mounted Rifles and Cavalry. That took him across a hard stretch of country, serving on the Texas frontier and pushing into Louisiana, Arkansas, and Indian Territory.

The war asked a lot of the man. And yet, if you were to read his letters home, you would not find a man consumed by battles or glory. What you would find is a father and a husband, worried about his wife and children, leaving instructions on how to teach a child to read, how to tend the crops, how to handle the plowing, the animals, the fences, and even the collecting of debts.

Typical of Texas Confederates, the marker says, and those letters carry a whole world in them. A world he was trying to hold together from a long, long way off. He survived the war, made it to Lockhart, and became a pioneer physician in Caldwell County.

But the story doesn't stop there. In 1871 he took a professorship of chemistry at Galveston Medical College. Then in 1879 he became the physician at A&M College, serving in that role until 1882.

And here is where the marker draws a line in the dirt: he was the first person to ever serve full time as a physician at any Texas college or university. The first. He died in 1889, a pioneer doctor in a pioneer state, and he had earned every syllable of that word.

What the marker says

(1824-1889) Pioneer Lockhart physician, from Alabama. Studied medicine, University of Pennsylvania. Was Civil War surgeon, Texas Mounted Rifles and Cavalry, on Texas frontier and in Louisiana, Arkansas and Indian Territory. Typical of Texas Confederates, his letters home show concern for wife and children: contain instructions on teaching child to read, crops, plowing, animal care, fences, debt collection. Professor of chemistry, 1871, Galveston Medical college. A&M College physician, 1879-82. First to serve full time in any Texas college or university.