Mary Smith Jones (1819-1907)

Mary Smith Jones, wife of Republic of Texas president Anson Jones and first president of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, was born in Lawrence County, Arkansas Territory, on July 24, 1819, to John McCutcheon and Sarah (Pevehouse) Smith. After Smith died in 1833, his wife and her five children moved to Texas and settled in January 1834 in Brazoria. There Sarah Smith married John Woodruff, a widower with six children. In April 1836 the Woodruff family and other Brazorians lost their homes when a division of Santa Anna's army forced them to flee toward the Sabine River. The Woodruffs found shelter in the timber of Clear Creek, eight miles from the battlefield of San Jacinto. After December 1836 the family resided in Houston. On July 23, 1837, Mary Smith was married in Houston to Hugh McCrory, a soldier in the Army of the Republic of Texas. McCrory died suddenly seven weeks later.

In Austin on May 17, 1840, Mary married Anson Jones, a prominent doctor and politician from Brazoria. Jones's political career eventually included a two-year term as senator from Brazoria, service as secretary of state under President Sam Houston, and election as president of the Republic of Texas in 1844. That year the Joneses built their plantation house at their estate, Barrington, four miles from Washington-on-the-Brazos. The estate was later sold at a loss, and after Jones's suicide in January 1858 Mary and the children were destitute. They moved to Galveston, where Ashbel Smith helped Mrs. Jones to buy his brother's 460-acre farm on Goose Creek, near the site of present Baytown. She moved to San Jacinto in 1871 and to Willis in 1874. In 1879 she returned to Houston, home of her son Cromwell, chief justice of Harris County. After his death, she lived with her daughter. One of her driving ambitions in later years was to rectify what she considered gross misrepresentations of her husband's role during the annexation controversy. To that end she repeatedly contacted authors and publishers in an unsuccessful attempt to produce a favorable biography of Anson Jones and to publish his book, Republic of Texas. Her major means of support during these years was the sale of family land in Matagorda, Bastrop, Bexar, and Goliad counties. Mrs. Jones served, largely in a symbolic role, as the first president of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas from 1891 through 1907. She was a Democrat and Episcopalian and was influential in establishing a church in Washington and St. Paul's College in Anderson. The Joneses had four children. Mary Jones died on December 31, 1907, at the residence of her daughter in Houston. TSHAOnline

Section F1
Glenwood Cemetery
Houston

29° 45.940, -095° 23.123

Samuel Thompson (1765-1843)

Samuel Thompson, physician, participant in the Revolutionary War, and alcalde of San Augustine Municipality, Texas, was born in 1765, the son of George Thompson of England. He was a resident of the Spartanburg District of South Carolina when he enlisted for service in the American Revolution in 1778 or 1779, at the age of thirteen or fourteen, under Capt. Joseph Wofford. He was an express carrier and wagoner and fought in the battle of Cowpens. Thompson married Precius Wofford after the war, and the couple owned three slaves. They sailed with other members of the Thompson family to Coahuila and Texas in 1826. Dr. Thompson is listed in Stephen F. Austin's register of families, and the first census of Texas enrolled him as a physician owning eighteen slaves. In 1834 and 1835 Thompson was alcalde in San Augustine. Thompson Academy was founded about 1839. The institution, about seven miles east of San Augustine, was donated by Thompson and named after him. He died in 1843 in San Augustine County and was buried on the original Thompson settlement. TSHAOnline


Chapel Hill Cemetery
Chapel Hill

31° 29.217, -094° 01.183

John Emmett Lyle (1910-2003)

John Emmett Lyle, Jr., member of the Texas and United States House of Representatives and the Texas State Cemetery Committee, was born near Paradise in the village of Boyd, Wise County, Texas, on September 4, 1910. A third generation Texan, he graduated from Wichita Falls High School and attended the junior college there, before enrolling in The University of Texas at Austin. While in Austin, he worked as a night watchman in the basement of the Capitol. After graduating from UT, he attended the night school branch of the Houston Law School, and, in 1934, began a legal career that ultimately spanned 69 years. At the suggestion of Governor James Allred, he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, and set up a private practice. However, in 1939, he was elected to the State Legislature representing a district comprised of Nueces, Duvall and Jim Wells Counties.

In the beginning of World War II, in 1942, he volunteered and took his basic training as a private in the Army. He was sent to Officer Training School where he graduated as a second Lieutenant. He was then assigned as a platoon leader to an Automatic Weapons Battalion in the 536th. That battalion was quickly sent to North Africa where he experienced combat as well as in Malta, Sicily and Italy. He was awarded a Purple Heart in the Anzio campaign and while serving as an infantry officer in the Arno River campaign, he was nominated and elected to the U. S. Congress for the fourteenth District of Texas. This District was made up of 19 counties. Congressman Lyle became the ranking member on the powerful Rules Committee. He served five terms and chose not to stand for reelection.

Congressman Lyle returned to South Texas and resumed the practice of law being active in the State Bar Association. He served on the State Board of Directors of the State Bar Association and as President of the Nueces County Bar Association. During that period as a lawyer and businessman, he represented many individuals, major energy companies, and served on corporate boards of both public and privately owned companies. He was a long time member of the Board of St. Luke's Hospital. During those years he served on Presidential Commissions under President Kennedy, Johnson, Reagan and most recently, in 1994, appointed by Presidential Clinton to the Federal Council on Aging. In 1963, he moved to Houston, Texas, where he continued to practice law and remained a member of both the Texas Bar Association and the American Bar Association. He was an active trustee for the David Dewhurst Trust as well as a member of the Board of Directors of numerous Falcon Seaboard companies. He was an active member of St. Martin's Episcopal Church and served on the Vestry, as Senior Warden, and as a member of the Senior Council. John Emmett Lyle, Jr. passed away on November 11, 2003, and was buried in the Texas State Cemetery. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

30° 15.936, -097° 43.638

Isaac Herbert Kempner (1873-1967)

I. H. Kempner, millionaire investor and one of the originators of the commission form of city government, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, the oldest son of eleven children of Elizabeth (Seinsheimer) and Harris Kempner. His father had emigrated from Poland, worked as a day laborer in New York, and eventually gone into the cotton warehouse business in Galveston. Kempner attended Washington and Lee University in Virginia until his father's death in 1894 forced him to drop out at age twenty-one and take over the family enterprises. He and his brother Daniel expanded the Kempner cotton business and branched out into real estate speculation. Kempner was elected a director of the Galveston Cotton Exchange and served continuously as either director, president, or vice president of that organization for nearly fifty years. He served as Galveston finance commissioner from 1901 to 1915 and as mayor from 1917 to 1919. In 1906 he and W. T. Eldridge acquired a 12,000-acre sugar mill, plantation, and refinery in Sugar Land. They operated under various names from that time, continually expanding their control over the sugar-refining industry, until they held a virtual monopoly by the 1930s. After Eldridge's death in 1932 the Kempners consolidated this venture under family ownership and the name Imperial Sugar Company. Kempner and his youngest brother, Stanley, also took over the Texas Prudential Insurance Company. The brothers were active in banking and held a controlling interest in United States National Bank in Galveston, where Lee Kempner was CEO. In 1902 Kempner married Henrietta Blum; they had five children. Kempner died on August 1, 1967, in Galveston and was buried in the Hebrew Benevolent Society Cemetery there. TSHAOnline

Hebrew Benevolent Society Cemetery
Galveston

29° 17.566, -094° 48.841