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Welcome to Texas Genealogy Trails! |
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We regret that we are unable to perform personal research for anybody. |
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In July 1846 Smith County was marked off from the Nacogdoches District and named for Gen. James Smith, a hero of the Texas Revolution and a prominent military figure in the Republic of Texas. Tyler was designated as the county seat and has remained so. The county commissioners' court was elected and met for the first time before the end of the year. |
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In 1867 Tyler became the headquarters of a subdistrict of the Freedmen's Bureau, and the bureau's agents, occasionally supported by small military garrisons, attempted to secure voting rights, fair labor contracts, and educational opportunities for the blacks of Smith County and its environs. Race relations rapidly deteriorated as the white citizens resisted these initiatives. |
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| The bureau closed in 1869, but racial tensions continued to disrupt the county. Late in 1871 the trial of several whites accused of violence against blacks resulted in a gunfight in the streets of Tyler between white citizens and black state policemen that left two whites dead and several black policemen wounded. Three years later Jack Johnson, a black man accused of murder, was lynched by whites. | |||||||||||||||||||
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Cities and towns
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If you have information that you'd like to share about any town, family, county or subject, please send it to us and we'll make sure it gets posted to the right county. We are looking for Census, Births, Deaths, Marriages, Biographies, Obituaries, and Newspaper Stories |
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