Evolution of a State or Recollections of Old Texas Days, Barker Texas History Center Series

This colorful memoir brings the Texas frontier to life, from smuggling adventures to fighting in the Texas Revolution and serving as a Texas Ranger.

Having left Kentucky at nineteen, Noah Smithwick arrived in Texas in 1827 to seek his fortune in a “lazy man’s paradise.” He left in 1861, when his opposition to secession took him to California. Looking back at that time, blind and nearing ninety, Smithwick recounted the story to his daughter—and so came to be this invaluable memoir of “old Texas days.”

A blacksmith and a tobacco smuggler, Smithwick made weapons for—and fought in—the Battle of Concepción. With Hensley's company, he chased the Mexican army south of the Rio Grande after the Battle of San Jacinto. Twice he served with the Texas Rangers. In quieter times, he was a postmaster and justice of the peace in little Webber's Prairie.

Eyewitness to so much Texas history, Smithwick recounts his life and adventures in a simple, straightforward style, with a wry sense of humor. His keen memory for detail—what people wore and ate; how they worked and played— vividly evokes life on the frontier.