George W. Smith (1848-1874)

    George W. Smith, Indian Campaigns Medal of Honor recipient, was born in 1848 at Greenfield, New York and enlisted with Company M, 6 US Cavalry, sometime in the early 1870s. On September 12, 1874, the third day of a siege in which a force of more than 100 Indians surrounded and attacked the Lyman Supply Train at the Upper Washita River in Texas, General Nelson Miles sent a detachment of three soldiers and two civilian scouts under Sergeant Zachariah Woodall to deliver a dispatch to Camp Supply. En route the six men were attacked along the Washita River by 125 Indians. Private Smith was one of four men immediately wounded. Throughout the day the four soldiers and two civilian scouts, after taking shelter in a ravine, continued a valiant resistance while defending their wounded. A band of twenty-five Indians succeeded in scattering the detachment's horses and the men fell back to a small knoll where throughout the day they were attacked from all directions. Without water, the men resisted and were down to 200 rounds of ammunition when night fell. Private Smith died of his wounds the following day, at which time the survivors were recovered by a relief force. His body was never recovered from the battlefield, so a marker in his memory was placed in San Antonio National Cemetery.

CITATION

While carrying dispatches was attacked by 125 hostile Indians, whom he and his comrades fought throughout the day. Pvt. Smith was mortally wounded during the engagement and died early the next day.

Section MA
San Antonio National Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 25.277, -098° 28.022

James Lincoln de la Mothe Borglum (1912-1986)

    Lincoln Borglum, named after his father's favorite president and called by his middle name, was the first child of Gutzon Borglum and his second wife, Mary Montgomery Williams. During his youth, Lincoln accompanied his father to the Black Hills of South Dakota and was present when the site for the Mt. Rushmore monument was selected. Although he had originally planned to study engineering at the University of Virginia, Lincoln began work on the monument in 1933 at the age of 21 as an unpaid pointer. He quickly moved into a series of more important jobs: he was put on the payroll in 1934, promoted to assistant sculptor in 1937, and promoted to superintendent in 1938 with an annual salary of $4,800. Gutzon Borglum had nearly completed the 60-foot heads of the four presidents (Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and T. Roosevelt) when he died on March 6, 1941.

    Lincoln had to abandon his father's ambitious plans to carry the work down to include the torsos of the presidents and an entablature due to a lack of funding; he left the monument largely in the state of completion it had reached under his father's direction. He was appointed Mount Rushmore National Memorial's first superintendent and served from October 1, 1941 until May 15, 1944. Borglum continued to work as a sculptor after leaving Mt. Rushmore. He created several religious works for churches in Texas including the well-known shrine Our Lady of Loreto in Goliad. He also wrote three books, My Father's Mountain (1965), Borglum's Unfinished Dream (1976) and Mount Rushmore: The Story Behind the Scenery (1977), all about the sculpting of Mount Rushmore. Like many of the men who worked on the Rushmore project, Borglum's lungs were permanently scarred from breathing in granite dust associated with the blasting. He died in Corpus Christi, Texas on January 27, 1986 at the age of 73.


City Cemetery #1
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 25.206, -098° 28.406

Henry Stevenson Brown (1793-1834)

    Henry Brown, early settler, trader, and Indian fighter, was born in Madison County, Kentucky, on March 8, 1793, the son of Caleb and Jemima (Stevenson) Brown. In 1810 he moved to St. Charles County, Missouri, where he was later sheriff. He volunteered for the War of 1812 and participated in the battle at Fort Clark, Illinois, in 1813. He married Mrs. Margaret Kerr Jones about 1814, moved to Pike County, Missouri, in 1819, and carried on trading via flatboat between Missouri and New Orleans. In December 1824, accompanied by his brother John (Waco) Brown, he landed at the mouth of the Brazos River equipped to trade with the Mexicans and Indians. In 1825 he was in command of a party of settlers that attacked and destroyed a band of Waco Indians at the site of present Waco. Brown was in Green DeWitt's colony in 1825 and in 1829 was in command of a company from Gonzales on a thirty-two-day campaign against the Indians. From 1826 to 1832 he engaged in the Mexican trade from headquarters in Brazoria, Gonzales, and San Antonio. At the time of the Anahuac Disturbances of 1832, Brown carried the information on the Turtle Bayou Resolutions from Gonzales to the Neches and Sabine River settlements and under John Austin commanded a company of eighty men in the battle of Velasco. He was a delegate from Gonzales to the Convention of 1832 at San Felipe de Austin and in 1833 was a member of the ayuntamiento of Brazoria. He died in Columbia on July 26, 1834. Brown County was named for him. Source

Columbia Cemetery

West Columbia

COORDINATES

29° 08.388, -095° 38.844

Douglas Reagan Ault (1950-2004)

    A native of Beaumont, Texas, Ault was a varsity baseball star at Texas Tech. He was drafted three different times in the MLB Draft, but refused to sign. He was finally signed by the hometown Rangers in 1973 as an amateur free agent. He advanced relatively quickly though the Minor League hierarchy, making the Majors in 1976 as a late season replacement. With the Rangers already having Mike Hargrove at first base, Ault became available in the 1976 Major League Baseball expansion draft where he was drafted by the Blue Jays. He became the starting first baseman in their first ever MLB game, and his actions that day turned Ault into the Blue Jays first superstar. He couldn't exceed the expectations given to him, and had an otherwise average career as a result and was out of the Majors within three years. He managed in the Minor Leagues for several years, leading the Syracuse Chiefs to a pennant in 1985. He retired in 1994, and went to the automobile business, but a series of personal tragedies and business failures plagued him in later life. Due to these setbacks, Ault committed suicide on December 22, 2004. Source

Garden of Seasons
Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Beaumont

COORDINATES

30° 07.799, -094° 05.831