This is a Message Board Post that is gatewayed to this mailing list. Surnames: Smith, Schmitt, Yeaman, Baxter, Sargent, Russler, Savage, Willey Classification: Query Message Board URL: http://boards.ancestry.com/mbexec/msg/rw/plB.2ACI/1584.2.1.1 Message Board Post: Ellen, thanks for answering my query. I received a copy of the following newspaper article back in the 1960's. Lewis was actually born in Texas instead of Germany. Here is the article and I can send more information about the family. If you can fill in any details I am missing, I would greatly appreciate it. "Who Was Who in Lampasas County PAGE 4—The Lampasas (Tex.) Record, Thursday, April 23, 1959 By E. M. Pharr PHILIP SMITH Jacob Schmitt, with his family of four sons, Jacob Jr., Philip, John and Lewis, and three daughters, Margaret, Emily and Mary Ann, left Hesse'n, Darmstadt, Germany in the early part of 1832 and sailed for America via Liverpool, England, thence to New York. Hearing of the enducements offered colonists who would come to Texas and settle, Schmitt and his family became a part of a colony made up in New York and arrived at Matagorda, Texas in December 1832. This story will deal primarily with Philip Smith, his family and descendants (the name having been changed from Schmitt to Smith by the father doubtless at the time he took out his American citizenship papers). According to records kept by Rev. Andrew N. Smith and W. Walter Smith, the other members of the original family are: John and Lewis, both of whom fought in the Confederate Army in the War Between the States, and John was killed in the battle of Atlanta during the Civil War, Lewis later living at Matagorda for a time and then at Abilene and at Fresno, Calif. where he died. Margaret married a Mr. Yeaman at Matagorda. Emily married John Russler, a brother of Mrs. Philip Smith, and they lived many years at Scalhorn, Mills County. Mary Ann became Mrs. Norman Savage of Bay City. Jacob Smith Jr. came to what later became Lampasas County with Philip and stayed here for a few years, returning then to Matagorda County where he lived the balance of his life and where many of his! descendants are now. Philip Smith, who was born December 21, 1821, was 15 years of age in 1836 and too young during the Texas-Mexican war to be in battle. However, he was in General Sam Houston's command and an elderly man and he were detailed to drive ox wagons moving women and children out of Santa Anna's line of march to Galveston for safety. It was during one of these trips that the Battle of San Jacinto was fought and Philip went back from his last trip to Galveston on the same boat with General Houston. The next stage of Philip's life recorded by the family mentions that he was a driver of a stage coach and carrying mail from Matagorda to Galveston. On one of these trips he stopped at the hotel at Velasco. He was met at the door of the hotel by a young lady, a Miss Caroline Louisa Russler, who had come to Texas from Ohio and was employed at the hotel following a shipwreck off the coast. As Philip was leaving the hotel, he invited the young lady to visit his sisters at Matagorda. She did and sometime later, in 1849, she became Mrs. Philip Smith. They built a home in Matagorda County and he went into the cattle business. Their first three children were born there, Henry Philip dying in infancy. In 1853 there came a storm and tidal wave which destroyed nearly all the family had except their home. The next spring, Philip and Jacob Jr. got together what they had left, and they and their families left Matagorda in May 1854, with what livestock they had been able to save, for a new location in central Texas. According to Rev. Smith, they had planned to go to the Coleman section, but a Mr. Ed Williams of Matagorda gave them 50 acres of land each if they would stop in this section. They came via Austin, and at Round Rock a wagon wheel broke down. As there was no shop there or in Austin, it had to be carried to LaGrange for repairs. On September 1, 1854 the two families and their herds arrived in a beautiful valley on the Lampasas River about a mile below the mouth of School Creek in what was to become Lampasas County. This was to be their future home. They had traveled for four months in ox wagons most of the distance over roadless prairies. These men purchased 50 more acres of land from Mr. Williams who owned a large acreage on both sides of the Lampasas River. Their first work was to build log cabins to live in— Philip's near the rock house recently remodeled by Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Nuckles, and Jacob's south of the present rock fence nearer the river—clear land and build rail fences which later were replaced by rock fences which are still standing. Indians gave the settlers trouble with frequent raids, and Jacob deciding that this was not as fertile a country as the coast lands and that he had rather risk the storms than the continued raids by the Indians, took his family back to Matagorda County after a few years here. Philip Smith was a lover of horses and these were what the Indians wanted. At night he would fasten the horses by chains to the large live oak trees around the house, and old scars are still visible on these trees, according to W. Walter Smith. One morning arrows were found which the Indians had shot at the dog of the family to try to stop him from barking. During the War Between the States, a company of rangers was organized known as Capt. Pace's home guard for the protection of the county against the Indians. Philip Smith, Grundy Morris and Wm. J. Wright were part of that organization. Philip Smith built a two-story rock house, mentioned above, in 1870. The rafters and ceiling joists were hewn from native cedar and hauled more than 35 miles. Land was very cheap in the early days of this county, and Philip Smith finally came into possession of all the land from the mouth of School Creek west to the Thomas E. Stanley property and south to include what is now the W. Walter Smith place. He was a cattle and horse man, and had large herds. He was known to all the cattlemen in central Texas and they used his large corrals to pen their cattle for overnight rests on their drives through this section. In later years Philip Smith built a frame house on the hill west of the rock house and lived there till his death in 1907. He also built the first barbed wire fence in that section, if not in Lampasas County. It is the fence on the west side of the road leading by Smith Cemetery to School Creek. He was a community builder, too. He donated the land where the first | school in that community was built; it was located north of the rock house about a half-mile. He also gave the land for the cemetery north of the rock house known as Smith Cemetery. The first Mrs. Smith died January 20, 1880 and Philip married Mrs. Mary Jane (Mollie) Longley Davis September 8, 1881. He died May 17, 1907 and he and his first wife were buried in Smith Cemetery. The second Mrs. Smith died several years later in Lampasas. Children born to the Philip Smiths (there were no children by the second marriage), besides the one dying on the coast, were Albert, Julia, Will J., Gilbert, Joe T., Norman, Jacob III, J. Wesley, Andrew Neal and Charlotte. Julia married Julius Townsend and they had the following children: Gus, Philip, Jessie, Garland, Ione, Della, Hattie, Eula and Lula. No further descendants of these two were secured by the writer. Will J. Smith married Mary Stanley. They had two children, Philip who is deceased, and W. Walter of Lampasas, who married Alta Carpenter. They had one son, now Lt. Col. Lloyd Smith of Puerto Rico, who married Margaret Wooten. They have four sons, Richard of Austin who married Ernamae Dumas and they have a daughter, and George, Gregory and Ronald, all at home. Gilbert Smith married Caroline Bear. They were parents of seven, Bessie who married Rev. F. Taylor and they live in Estancia, N.M. and have two children, Winifred (Mrs. Ted Trent, Shiprock, N.M., who has three children) and James of California who has three children; Misses May and Ethel Smith of Lampasas who live the family home; Beulah (Mrs. J. M. Thogmartin, Lampasas, who has two children, Caroline and Tommie); Gilbert Jr. of Bishop who married Rotha Fetner and they have one daughter, Mary Ann of Corpus Christi; Earl of Lampasas whose wife was Lydia Fickle and they have four children, Earlene (Mrs. James Dugan of Dal! las who has three children, Nelda_(Mrs. R. E. McGinnis of Pasadena, four children, Robert and Ronald, at home, the former attending the University of Houston; and Virgie who died as a child. Joe T. Smith married Lucy Bunch. They had six children: Allen of Lampasas who married Ruth Dumas and they had one son, Norman Allen of Lampasas who married Beverly Hammand and they have two daughters; Allen's first wife died and his second wife is the former Ma__ Woods; Alvin whose wife Nellie Wright has no children. Jesse died when a young man; Minnie (Mrs. Milton Heale_ of Brownwood, has two children Madeline who is Mrs. Darrell Wilson, Brownwood, and has three sons, and Bryan, student in the University of Texas; Dicy (Mrs. Sam Shurtleff,) Lampasas, one son Sam Shurtleff Jr., Houston, who also has one son; and Elma who died as a young woman. J. Wesley Smith's wife was Emma McNett. They had one son, Wayne, Lampasas, who married Thais Higgins and they have two sons, Wayne Jr., who married Marie Maxey, and is a student at Texas A&M and Jay Donald, also of A&M. Andrew Neal Smith, now Rev. A. N. Smith, Lampasas, married Lula Lancaster. They have three children: Bernard of San Angelo, whose wife is the former Maria Hopkins, and they have one daughter, Mrs. Otha Lloyd of Austin; Norma (Mrs. E. W. Tampke, Austin) has three children, David who is teaching in London, England, Mrs. John Terwilliger, Normal, Illinois, who also has a daughter, and Mrs. Larry Smith, Austin; and Martin of Waco whose wife was Rotha Carroll—they have four daughters, Mrs. Sam Allasandra of Houston, Jean, Marlene and Patsy at home. Charlotte married W. S. Bear and they had no children. The other children of Philip Smith were never married, and all of them have passed to the great beyond except Rev. A. N. Smith of Lampasas."