WHO WAS DEAF SMITH

When I was traveling around Texas in 2018, I stopped in Hereford, Texas which is the county seat of Deaf Smith County, which made me wonder who was Deaf Smith. Well, here's the answer. 

Erastus “Deaf” Smith was a partially deaf scout who was at the Alamo and served as the courier for William Barrett Travis. In February 1836 he carried Travis’s famed letter of defiance from the Alamo. He later fought at the Battle of San Jacinto, which ended the Texas Revolution. After the War he led a company of 20 Texas Rangers, who fought the Mexican near present day Laredo. The Rangers killed 10 Mexicans during the battle which occurred almost a year after the surrender of San Jacinto. 

After the battle, Smith returned to Richmond, Texas where he died a few months later. A marker stands in the Richmond Episcopal Church Cemetery, but the actual location of his grave is unknown. When Deaf Smith County was formed in 1890 it was named in his honor. 

So as Paul Harvey would say, "Not you know the rest of the story.