WRITINGS OF 5AM HOUSTON, 1843
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citizen of Gonzales (See Noah Smithwick, The Evolut.ion of a State, 23); but by 1828 he had secured a divorce--at least his wife had agreed to give him a divorce-and he had set up his residence at San Antonio, where, on February 22, 1832, he was married to Maria Jesus Curbelo, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Juan Curbelo, whose grandfather had been one of the Canary Island colonists, and had served as governor of the Province of Texas in 1778. From 1830 to 1835 Smith carried on a varied line of business enterprises. He had mercantile interests at Bexar, he developed into farm lands part of his headright acreage, as well as building up a fine herd of young cattle on his pasture lands. In politics he was a radical Republican, and sympathized strongly with the "war party." In 1835, he and Samuel Maverick and P. B. Cocke were arrested and held in the Smith home as prisoners by the Mexican authorities. A council of war had sentenced them, on circumstancial evidence and suspicion, to be shot, but they were saved by the intervention and prayers of Smith's young wife. In a short time the three men whose lives had been saved by a hair's breadth, effected their escape and joined Austin's army. Smith was with Bowie and Fannin at the battle of Concepcion, and was one of the gu,ides for Johnson and Milam into San Antonio on December 5, 1835. After the battle of San Antonio, December 5-10, 1835, Smith was connected with the scouting service under William Barret Travis, until he had certain news of the coming of the Mexican army to Texas in February, 1836. He then hurl"ied to San Anton:o to put his family in a place of safety and was in that town when the Mexicans, under Santa Anna, ai-rived, February 23, 1836. He and Dr. John Sutherland were the scouts sent out to ascertain the fact of the Mexicans' arrival, and found Santa Anna's army on the Cibolo. He and Dr. Sutherland also carried out Travis's first letter asking for help. It was Smith, too, who guided the immortal band of thirty-two from Gonzales into the Alamo on the night of March 1, and it was Smith who, on the night of March 3, crawled through a ditch and made his way out of the Alamo to carry Travis's last message to the world. After the independence of Texas had been made certain by the victory of the Texans at San Jacinto, and the Republic of Texas had been legally established under its own constitution, Smith renewed his business relations in San Antonio, and was elected the first mayor of that city under the Republic of Texas. He held that office from January, 1837 to March 9, 1838; again he served in this office from January 8, 1840 to January 9, 1841; and again from April 18, 1842 to March 30, 1844. Throughout his life he gave largely of his time and means to public affairs. During the first six years of the young Republic, he held eleven commissions under Presidents Houston and Lamar; and when he died he was at Washington on the Brazos, attending the Texas Congress as a representative from the Bexar district. John W. Smith's family describe him as having been six feet and one inch tall, fair complexioned, red-brown hair, and deep blue eyes. During mature life he weighed from 180 to 200 pounds. His body rests in an unknown grave at Washington, Texas. See San Antonio Express, December 10, 1933; the note book of Mrs. Frank Gillespie (Smith's great granddaughter); the Smith Papers in possession of Mrs. William G. Tobin (Smith's daughter); Frederick C. Chabot, Genealogies of Ea.rly San Antonio Families, 274; also,
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