"DIED," "At Columbia, on the morning of the 13th inst., in the 71st year of his age, Mr. WM. SMEATHERS, who was one of the earliest pioneers of this country, having resided in Texas nearly 17 years, subject to all the privations of a new, and then wild, uncultivated country, and bravely maintaining himself single handed on a frontier against the assaults of numerous hordes of predatory savages, in many a hard fought fray. But his course has finished and he has gone to his final audit. In his death his country has lost a bold and hardy defender, and his family a kind parent." Obituary of deerslayer William Smithers in the Telegraph and Texas Register, 19 August 1837.