DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — and friend, this one's worth slowing down for. The name on this marker is Randal Jones. Born 1786, died 1873.
And if you were drawing up a list of men who showed up at every critical moment in Texas history, you'd have a hard time leaving him off. Start with 1819. Jones is riding with Long's expedition — out there on the edge of everything, part of one of those bold, dangerous gambits that the frontier was full of in those years.
That's where his story begins to take shape. Then 1824. Austin's building something — a colony, a future, an argument that Texas could be settled and governed — and Randal Jones is there again, this time as a Captain of militia under Austin.
That same year, Jones receives a land grant. Right here. This land.
And on that land, he builds a house. Now, a house is just a house until history decides to walk through the door. In 1835, Jones is elected to the General Consultation — that gathering of colonists wrestling with what Texas was going to become, one of the foundational moments of the whole story.
But here's what the marker wants you to stop and feel. That house Randal Jones built on his granted land — his home — is the house where Erastus "Deaf" Smith died. November 30, 1837.
Deaf Smith. Scout. One of the most consequential figures of the Texas Revolution.
And at the end, it was Randal Jones's house that sheltered him. Some men make history in the open, in the thunder of it. Randal Jones seems to have done it quietly — showing up, building something, offering what he had.
The marker was erected by the State of Texas in 1936. The land it marks was granted over a hundred years before that. Stand here long enough, and you can almost feel the weight of those layers.
What the marker says
1786-1873 Member of Long's expedition in 1819 -- Captain of militia under Austin in 1824 - Member of the General Consultation, 1835 - On this land granted him in 1824 he built the house in which "Deaf" Smith died, November 30, 1837 Erected by the State of Texas 1936