DUANE
Duane's take
The marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one passin' it along. Now if you ever wondered what it took to carve a county out of raw Texas frontier, here's your answer: it took men like Benjamin, Charles, Gilford, and Mira J. Smith.
Four brothers. Four big brothers. We're talkin' six feet four inches or taller, every last one of them, and none of them weighing under two hundred and fifty pounds.
They came out of Arkansas — arrived in Texas before or during the eighteen-forties — and Delta County would never quite be the same. First thing they needed was land. They obtained title from heirs to the Moses Williams land grant, patented in 1849 and surveyed by Major George W.
Stell. After 1853, several generations of the Smith family put down roots right here. This was no gentle homesteadin'.
This was frontier work, and these men were built for it. They cut the logs themselves. Built their own cabins with puncheon floors — that's split-log, in case you're wonderin' — riven-board roofs, and furniture they made with their own hands.
No nails. Wooden pegs held it all together. No glass in the windows either — board shutters kept out the wind.
And those chimneys? Black clay mud plastered over sticks. Simple as that, and it worked.
Now, a man that size needs to eat, and bear meat was the main food. They hunted with flintlock rifles in places that'd give most folks pause — Jernigan Thicket, just two miles west of here, being one of those dangerous places. You went into Jernigan Thicket.
You came back with bear, or sometimes you just came back. Charles Smith had a sweeter sideline. He kept bees, and folks knew him for it.
They called him Honey. But if you want to talk about impact on Delta County, the marker points straight to Mira J. Smith.
He was a key man in the settlin' of this county because he was an early blacksmith. A community without a blacksmith was a community runnin' on borrowed time. Mira J. understood that.
And he passed it on — his second son, Henry, became a blacksmith too. His first son, Moses, became a tanner. The trades moved through the family like water findin' its level.
And the women of those four families — don't let anyone skip past them. They carded cotton and wool, spun it, wove it, sewed the clothing that kept those big men and their children dressed through every season. Young Moses Smith also made men's buckskin suits, so between the tannin' and the sewin', this family was clothin' a frontier.
In time, the land they worked proved itself in a very particular way. That grant has produced over one million dollars' worth of cotton. Four brothers from Arkansas.
Puncheon floors and wooden pegs and clay-mud chimneys. Bear hunts in dangerous thickets. A blacksmith who helped build a county.
A man called Honey. And a million dollars in cotton growin' out of ground they helped tame. Delta County remembers.
What the marker says
Tall, strong men who helped to carve Delta County out of Texas frontier. Benjamin, Charles, Gilford and Mira J. Smith came to Texas from Arkansas before or during the 1840s. They obtained from heirs title to the Moses Williams land grant, patented 1849, and surveyed by Major George W. Stell. After 1853 several generations of the Smith family lived here. The brothers were each 6 feet, 4 inches or taller and weighed over 250 pounds. they cut logs and built their cabins with puncheon (split-log) floors, riven-board roofs and homemade furniture. Instead of nails, wooden pegs were used; instead of glass windows, board shutters. Chimneys were of black clay mud plastered over sticks. Bear meat was the main food, obtained by hunting with flintlock rifles in such dangerous places as Jernigan Thicket, 2 miles west. Charles Smith kept bees, and was known as "Honey." Mira J. Smith was a key man in settling of Delta County, because he was an early blacksmith. His first son, Moses, became a tanner; the second son, Henry, a blacksmith. The women of the four families carded cotton and wool, and spun, wove and sewed clothing. Young Moses Smith also made men's buckskin suits. Grant has produced over $1,000,000 worth of cotton. Marker sponsored by Lina M. and Melvin W. Smith, Margueritta and Ernest O. Smith