Smith Cemetery

Duane's take

The way I tell it, this one comes straight from the official marker for Smith Cemetery in Ellis County, so let's see what the stone has to say. Out on a knoll in Ellis County, there's a cemetery that's been keepin' its watch since 1852. When it opened, that knoll sat in wilderness: pure, unbroken Texas frontier.

Today, it overlooks nine urban areas. The world grew up around it, but Smith Cemetery stayed right where it was, holdin' its ground. It was founded by a woman named Nancy Owen Smith, established for her family and the neighbors who were puttin' down roots alongside her.

And the very first person laid to rest there was her husband, Hans Smith, born in 1799, died in 1852. Now Hans Smith was not a man who'd lived a small life before he ever set foot in Texas. He'd served as a lawmaker in Missouri: twice, from 1830 to 1832, and again from 1834 to 1836.

Then down to Arkansas, where he served in the legislature from 1844 to 1846. The man knew how to build something from nothing, how to sit in a room and help shape the rules a community lives by. In 1846, he moved here.

And he went to work. He opened the area's first cotton gin. He helped organize Ellis County in 1850.

He was running a store, building a life, becoming the kind of figure a frontier community leans on. And then (here's where the story turns dark, and it deserves to be said plainly) Hans Smith was robbed and murdered. He was in Houston, buying goods for his store, when it happened.

He never made it home. His wife Nancy buried him on that knoll, and she named the place, and it has carried the family name ever since. Generations followed.

Pioneers first, then their descendants, on down through the years. Eventually, in 1953, the Smith Cemetery Association was organized to steward all of that, and it was chartered in 1955. A knoll that once looked out over wilderness.

A woman who buried her husband and kept goin'. Nine urban areas now crowding the horizon, and that cemetery still standing quiet in the middle of it all. Some places just refuse to be forgotten.

What the marker says

(Established in 1852) Burial place of pioneers and generations of descendants; on a knoll that was in wilderness when cemetery opened, but now overlooks nine urban areas. Founded by Nancy Owen Smith for her family and neighbors. First burial was for her husband Hans Smith (1799-1852), lawmaker in Missouri (1830-32, 1834-36) and Arkansas (1844-46), who moved here in 1846. He opened area's first cotton gin, helped organize Ellis County (1850), and was robbed and murdered while buying goods in Houston for his store. The Smith Cemetery Association, organized in 1953, was chartered in 1955. (1973)