Silas Smith: Early Texas pioneer who became labeled a ‘Tory’

LEGENDS OF TEXAS

EDITORS NOTE: Silas Smith’s story is told by his great-great-great-grandson, Devin Lindsey. Devin serves The Sons of the Republic of Texas (SRT) as: Secretary General SRT National; North Central Texas District Representative; member and Past President of the David Crockett Chapter 47 in Granbury.

I was born June 1, 1782 in Darlington County, South Carolina to Jesse and Sarah Ann (Wordein) Smith.  We eventually made our way to Lafayette Pariah, Louisiana. That’s where I married my first wife, Elizabeth Faulk, in January 1806.  Elizabeth and I had six children — Wiley, Seth, Nancy, Bryant, Lydia, and Noel — before her death in 1826. My second wife, Lurenda Green Wilburn, was the widow of Elijah Wilburn. Lurenda and I married on September 11, 1827, in Lafayette.  My children with Lurenda are Calvin, Silas, Jr., John, and Lurinda b. 1835. My stepchildren are Lucinda, James, and Charles Wilburn.

In 1829 I decided to scout out Mexican Texas along with several of my neighbors and friends. We left Louisiana by boat from the Vermillion River area.  Having missed the Trinity River channel; we found ourselves in Turtle Bay and decided the banks of Turtle Bayou was a good place to stay the night.  The owner of the land had different thinking, arriving at our campsite fully armed intending to evict the trespassers.

I was greatly pleased to discover that the landowner was my old friend James Taylor White from St. Martins Parish. He was as glad to see me as I was him.  Taylor was anxious for me and my family to settle nearby. The land up the Trinity River a piece on a bluff at the mouth or Turtle Bayou was just right for us. I headed back to Louisiana to retrieve my family. 

Taylor White and I were declared ineligible for Mexican grants since we both arrived after the Mexican government stopped granting titles.  In 1835, land commissioners George Antonio Nixon and Charles Taylor were issuing titles in Chambers County. but that did not help me nor Taylor White clear up our titles. Finally we each received headrights from the Republic of Texas. I received land near Cracker’s Neck, near present-day Hankamer.

By 1831 public opinion against Gen. Juan Davis Bradburn at Fort Anahuac was intensifying.  He was accused of harboring escaped slaves from Louisiana.  Slavery in Mexico was illegal, except for some special provisions for indentured servants solely within the Austin Colony.

It was suspected that W. B. Travis and Warren D.C. Hall, a past associate of Bradburn back in Louisiana, decided to trick Bradburn by passing a letter to him, supposedly written by a trusted friend, a ferry keeper on the Sabine named Page Ballew. The letter claimed that 100 men were poised in Louisiana waiting to cross the Sabine and forcibly recover the slaves.  Gen. Bradburn dispatched Taylor White and me to verify the claim.  We returned several days later and reported that there were no armed men between the Sabine and Anahuac.  Furthermore, no one in Louisiana had heard of such an invasion.  Bradburn, believing he had been duped, had Travis arrested, which increased the turmoil in Anahuac.

There were two factions in Texas; those who wanted independence from Mexico and those who wanted to avoid a war by staying loyal to Mexico. I was not opposed to fighting as demonstrated by my serving in the War of 1812 as a Sergeant in Col. Alexander DeClouet’s Regiment, Louisiana Militia. However; I was well established and preferred to concentrate on ranching, and avoid participation in politics. Several of us, in the Anahuac area, preferred to be left alone to trade livestock in both Louisiana and Coahuila.  We opted out of voting, on Feb. 1, 1836, for delegates to the convention held at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 1.  Because of this, we were given the derogatory label of Tories.

After the Texas Revolution, in 1837 and 1839, I was elected as a Justice of the Peace for Chambers County, which was still a part of the larger Liberty County.  I was entitled to sign “Esquire” after my name. In 1838, having proved to General Land Office of the Republic of Texas that I had lived here before March 2, 1836, the date of the signing of the Declaration of Independence,  I finally received a headright of one league and labor (4,606 acres).

On May 22, 1843 I served as jury foreman in a land dispute trial between Thomas Jefferson Chambers and John O’Brian.  We decided in favor of Mr. O’Brian, which did not sit well with Mr. Chambers. He armed himself as for an Indian campaign, with a knife, pistols, a rifle and a double-barreled gun loaded with ball in one chamber and 12 shot in the other. Eyewitness L.C. Ferguson heard Mr. Chambers exclaim “If I cannot hold the land I claim by law, I will hold it by my rifle!”

Ferguson said that Chambers hid in the bushes 40 paces away and shot O’Brian, when he opened the door, killing him instantly.  Ferguson was seriously wounded with buckshot when Chambers fired a second shot. Ferguson survived and identified Mr. Chambers as the assailant.

Chambers surrendered to the Sheriff, but he was not indicted for the shootings. Chambers County is named for Thomas Jefferson Chambers.

My dear Lurenda died in 1853. I missed her terribly until I passed in 1856. Lurenda and I are buried in unmarked graves near or at Whittington Cemetery, adjacent to St. Mary’s Baptist Church in Hankamer, Chambers County.