Henry Smith

Smith was born in Kentucky in 1788 and settled in present Brazoria County, where he farmed, taught school for a while and did some surveying. He was severely wounded at the battle of Velasco in 1832. He served as alcalde of Brazoria in 1833, and in 1834 the governor of Coahuila and Texas made him political chief of the new department of the Brazos. As governor he did not believe in compromise; in January 1836 he tried to dissolve the General Council, and the council impeached him. The Convention of 1836 never called him to answer the charges.

What the plaque says

Henry Smith (1788-1851) immersed himself in public affairs soon after arriving in Texas in 1827. Initially a local political leader in what is now Brazoria County, he was appointed in 1835 as a delegate to the San Felipe Consultation, which met to determine Texas' position toward the Mexican dictatorship established by Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. Contrary to Smith's desire for independence, the Consultation voted to support the 1824 Mexican federal constitution, but established a provisional government to operate until the conflict with Santa Anna was resolved. Henry Smith was the chief author of the plan for civil government, which was adopted as organic law on Nov. 11, 1835. He then was elected Provisional Governor and served from Nov. 12, 1835, until Mar. 1, 1836. Smith's term was plagued with problems, but he submitted his progress report on Mar. 4 to the Convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos. There Smith's crusade for independence was finally won. Following the war against Mexico, Henry Smith served as Texas' Secretary of the Treasury under President Sam Houston and one term in the Republic's House of Representatives. "Gold Fever" led Smith to California where he died and was buried in an unmarked grave in 1851. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Capitol — steps away
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 0.6 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• Harry Ransom Center — 0.8 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.

More markers nearby

• Governor James Edward Ferguson, Governor Miriam A. Ferguson — steps away
• Governor Elisha Marshall Pease — steps away
• Governor Edmund Jackson Davis — steps away
• Governor Andrew Jackson Hamilton — steps away