The Evolution of a State or Recollections of Old Texas Days

<p>I was but a boy in my nineteenth year and in for adventure when I started out from Hopkinsville Kentucky with all my worldly possessions consisting of a few dollars in money a change of clothes and a gun of course to seek my fortune in this lazy man's paradise.</p> <p>Noah Smithwick was an old man blind and near his ninetieth year when his daughter recorded these words. He had stayed on in paradise-Texas-from 1827 to 1861 when his opposition to secession took him to California. <i>The Evolution of a State</i> is his story of these old Texas days.</p> <p>A blacksmith and a tobacco smuggler Noah Smithwick made weapons for the Battle of Concepción and he fought in that battle. With Hensley's company he chased the Mexican army south of the Rio Grande after the Battle of San Jacinto. Twice he served with the Texas Rangers. In quieter times he was a postmaster and justice of the peace in little Webber's Prairie.</p> <p>Eyewitness to so much Texas history Smithwick recounts his life and adventures in a simple straightforward style with a wry sense of humor. His keen memory for detail-what the people wore what they ate how they worked and played- vividly evokes the sights sounds and smells of the frontier.</p> <p>First published in part by the <i>Dallas Morning News</i> Smithwick's recollections gained such popularity that they were published in book form as <i>The Evolution of a State</i> in 1900. This new edition of a Texas classic makes widely available for the first time in many years this best of all books dealing with life in early Texas.</p>