Customer Reviews

The Evolution of a State or Recollections of Old Texas Days (Barker Texas History Center Series)

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Noah Smithwick's recollections bring to life the early era of Anglo-Texas history. This book is filled with colorful characters and anecdotes, almost a who's who of people behind the place names of modern Texas. No other account matches this densely-packed eyewitness narrative as a color commentary of days before - and after - the Alamo. Against the backdrop of history, this book details many personalities and incidents that are unrecorded elsewhere.

Old Noah provides a somewhat biased insight into the early days of anglo Texas and the Texas Revolution. Unfortunately, old Noah's memory was somewhat moldy when he set his recollections down, conflicting with other contemporary reports of various issues. Nevertheless, this book is probably the first place to commence research in this field and is required reading for anyone who wishes to understand the attitudes and impressions of the period.

Dictated to one of his daughters when he was well past eighty, Noah Smithwick witnessed the panorama of Texas History. From the early days of Austin's Colony to the the aftermath of the Civil War, the text is lively with a dry sense of humor. But the reader is urged to use this book with caution. Some facts don't match up with other documents that were written at the time, instead of years later. (Noah had been banished from Texas in a round-about way. He had made a rifle and loaned it to another settler, who promptly used it to commit a murder.) Smithwick seemed to posess a fair education, which on the Texas frontier was something of an accomplishment. Blacksmith, carpenter, tobacco smuggler, gunsmith, racontour par excellance and even somewhat of a romantic, Smithwick's book is well worth reading.

I learned of this book through the H-Texas History forum online and I was not disappointed. Occasional "old time" expressions make the account interesting and remind the reader that the writer is speaking from another time. The story as told from a first-person point of view was enhanced by my prior knowledge of events in Texas history. Reading about those events in the words of a person who was there was impressive. I highly recommend this book. I have purchased copies as gifts.

Noah Smithwick was an old man, blind and near his ninetieth year, when his daughter recorded these words. After his death in 1899, she polished the manuscript and had it published in 1900. He had stayed on in "paradise" Texas from 1827 to 1861, when his opposition to secession took him to California. This book is his story of these "old Texas days." If his memory for facts sometimes fails him, his stories never do.

I truly enjoyed Noah Smithwicks first hand details of his adventures and life in the period of time that Texas was being formed as a republic, and then a state. I enjoyed reading about the local rivers and spots thereon, which were so important for water and mapping, the people of our history, and of course the Indian tales but especially about hunting game that no longer exists in the great state.
I highly reccomend this book for those who love to read the old timers adventures of back in the "olden" days and how politics begun in the Republic territory. A few good companion books to this would be The boy Captives and Deep in Brush Country.

This memoir, dictated by Smithwick when he was in his 90's, was hard to put down. Like Forest Gump, he seems to have been right there at all the major events leading up to Texas' independence.

A detailed and authentic account of the period by a very hardy pioneer.
Noah Smithwick was a survivor and on top of his game. I note there is a town named after him NW of Austin. I highly recommend this book for anyone interested in frontier Texas.

Thanks and God Bless y'all and your families, friends, etc... for providing this very much appreciated product for our family, friends, etc... . May God always Bless y'all, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.

This is a must read book for any one wanting to get a good view of early Texas history