Obedience Fort Smith, pioneer and businesswoman, was born around 1774,
the daughter of Elias and Sarah Suggs Fort of Edgecombe County, North Carolina.
She moved with her parents to Nashville, Tennessee, where she married widower
David Smith on November 3, 1791. The Smiths moved to the Red River valley in
Christian and Logan counties, Kentucky, on the Tennessee border. During the War
of 1812, David Smith raised a company of friends and relatives and served under
Col. John Coffee. Obedience bore ten children by 1812. The family moved to
Jackson, Mississippi, in the 1820s, when David bought land in the new state.
David Smith died on December 4, 1835, and was buried at his home near Jackson.
Obedience Smith moved to Texas along with her son, John W. N. A. Smith, her
eldest daughter, Sarah (Sallie) David, and Sarah's four sons, including Benjamin
F. and David S. Terry.qv Sallie, a Baptist like her parents, had separated from
her husband, Joseph R. Terry, over his building a gambling hall near the capitol
in Jackson. Obedience and her family settled in Brazoria County on the
plantation belonging to another of her sons, Benjamin Fort Smith.qv Obedience
and Ben Fort moved to Houston in early 1837, where he built the City Hotel on
Franklin Street. In January 1838 Obedience and John each applied for and
received headrights of 4,606 acres, which they located on the southern and
western edges of Houston. The rest of her living children, two sons and two
married daughters, moved to Houston by 1841. In 1840 Obedience owned eight
slaves but had no taxable land, having sold her headright to John. She
established a drayage business for which the city required a licence in 1846. As
a resident of Houston, Obedience Smith built, cared for, and maintained a church
where any Protestant minister was allowed to preach. She died on March 1, 1847,
at her home. Her three oldest sons predeceased her, and her will named her
son-in-law, Hiram George Runnels,qv executor to distribute her slaves and settle
her debts.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: May Wilson McBee, The Life and Times of David
Smith (1959).
Margaret Swett Henson