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{{short description|American politician}}
[[Image:Ashbel_Smith.jpg|thumb|right|180px|Dr. Ashbel Smith of Texas]]▼
'''Ashbel Smith''' ([[August 13]], [[1805]] - [[January 21]], [[1886]]) was a pioneer physician, diplomat and official of the [[Republic of Texas]], Confederate officer and first President of the Board of Regents of the [[University of Texas]].▼
▲'''Ashbel Smith''' (
==Early life==
[[File:Coat of Arms of Ashbel Smith.svg|175px|thumb|left|Coat of Arms of Ashbel Smith]]
Smith was born on
==Texas settler==
Upon arriving in Texas in 1837, Smith quickly became a close acquaintance of [[Sam Houston]] and was appointed to the post of surgeon general with the Republic of Texas Army. Even though militarily the [[Texas Revolution]] was over, Smith set up an efficient system of medical operations and established the first hospital in the area that would become [[Houston, Texas|Houston]].<ref>[http://www.lib.utexas.edu/taro/utcah/00362/cah-00362.html Ashbel Smith Papers, The Center for American History]</ref> As President of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston called on Smith to negotiate a treaty with the [[Comanches]] in 1838. The [[Texas Congress]] failed to ratify the treaty, which would have recognized a Comanche homeland, the [[Comancheria]], thus leading to the [[Council House Fight]] and [[Great Raid of 1840]].<ref name="ftp.rootsweb.com">[http://
A supporter of public education, Smith was a charter member and first vice president of the Philosophical Society of Texas. The society immediately set about to request that the Texas Congress establish a system of public education in Texas.<ref
In 1839, a [[yellow fever]] epidemic broke out in [[Galveston]], and Smith treated the victims of the disease while writing reports about the treatment of the disease in the ''Galveston News''. As a result of this experience, he wrote the first treatise on yellow fever in Texas.<ref
==Texas diplomat and secretary of state==
In President Sam Houston's second term (
==
<blockquote>
Smith served as a surgeon in the U.S. Army during the [[
''On this occasion I expressed my utter dissent from and opposition to all operations then carrying on in London, having for their object the abolition of [[Slavery]] in Texas. - Ashebel Smith<ref>{{Cite web|title=Ashbel Smith to Anson Jones, July 31, 1843|url=http://www.texasslaveryproject.org/sources/ROTDC/display.php?f=TSP0235.xml|access-date=2022-02-02|website=www.texasslaveryproject.org}}</ref>''
In the early 1850s, Dr. Smith worked with [[Gail Borden]] to develop and promote a dried beef biscuit.<ref name="Silverthorne, Elizabeth 1982" /> When the [[Texas Medical Association]] came into being in 1853, Smith was one of the founders.<ref name="Handbook of Texas Online" /> In 1855, Smith was elected to the [[Texas House of Representatives]] from Harris County. In his first term, Smith supported measures to aid railroad construction, validate land titles, improve the common schools.<ref name="Handbook of Texas Online" /> He also served as headmaster of Houston Academy before the Civil War.
==Civil War==
Smith supported Texas' secession from the Union in 1861. When it was clear that war was inevitable, he organized the Bayland Guards, also known as Company C of the [[
==After the war: focus on public education for African-Americans and women==
At the conclusion of the Civil War, Smith and [[William P. Ballinger]] were sent by Texas Confederate Governor [[Pendleton Murrah]] as commissioners to negotiate peace terms for Texas with Union officials in [[New Orleans]].<ref
In 1866, Smith and his cousin Henry Gillette founded the Bayland Orphanage to care for the children of deceased Confederate veterans.<ref>[http://www.ourbaytown.com/Files/baytown_cemeteries.doc ''At Rest: A Historical Directory of Harris County, Texas, Cemeteries (1822-2001).'' Compiled by Trevia Wooster Beverly. Tejas Publications & Research, Houston, 2001.]</ref> Smith was also elected again as a [[Democratic Party (United States)|Democratic Party]] state representative from Houston to the [[Eleventh Texas Legislature]], serving for one term in 1866.
The Texas Historical Society was organized in Houston in 1870 with Ashbel Smith as its president.<ref>[http://www.houstonhistory.com/decades/history5c.htm Houston History]</ref>
According to the ''Handbook of Texas Online'' in the 1870s, "[Smith] championed public education for blacks and women and was one of three commissioners appointed by Governor [[Richard Coke]] to establish an 'Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, for the benefit of the Colored Youths.' This school, located five miles east of [[Hempstead,Texas|Hempstead]], is now [[Prairie View A&M University]].<ref
Smith, with Greensville Dowell, reorganized the troubled Galveston Medical College into the Texas Medical College in 1873. As president of the Texas State Medical Association and trustee of the University of Texas, he advocated keeping the medical school in Galveston, arguing before the Texas Legislature that Galveston presented the best opportunity to study diseases.<ref>{{cite book|title=Galveston: a history|last=McComb|first=David G.|publisher=University of Texas Press|location=Austin, Texas|year=1986|page=98}}</ref>
Smith was appointed by the [[United States Centennial Commission]] in 1876 to act as a judge on the Jury of Awards at the Great International Exhibition in Philadelphia. In 1878 President [[Rutherford B. Hayes]] appointed him one of the two honorary commissioners from Texas to the [[Paris International Exposition]].<ref>[http://www.cemetery.state.tx.us/pub/user_form.asp?step=1&pers_id=128 Biographical Data from the Texas State Cemetery]</ref>▼
▲Smith was appointed by the [[United States Centennial Commission]] in 1876 to act as a judge on the Jury of Awards at the Great International Exhibition in Philadelphia. In 1878 President [[Rutherford B. Hayes]] appointed him one of the two honorary commissioners from Texas to the [[Paris International Exposition]].<ref name="cemetery.state.tx.us">[http://www.cemetery.state.tx.us/pub/user_form.asp?step=1&pers_id=128 Biographical Data from the Texas State Cemetery]</ref>
Elected to a final two-year term in the Texas House of Representatives in 1878, Smith again represented his home county in the [[Sixteenth Texas Legislature]]. His primary focus was the establishment of a [[liberal arts]] public university with a first-class medical department. Smith was made President of the newly-established [[University of Texas at Austin|University of Texas]] Board of Regents in 1881. Smith's goals were to recruit the best professors available for the faculty and to establish a curriculum that would make the university, which in the 1880s was still on the western [[frontier]], a distinctive national institution of higher learning. He also saw to it that the medical branch was established in Galveston, near his home.<ref>[http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/SS/fsm4.html Handbook of Texas Online]</ref>▼
▲Elected to a final two-year term in the Texas House of Representatives in 1878, Smith again represented his home county in the [[Sixteenth Texas Legislature]]. His primary focus was the establishment of a [[liberal arts]] public university with a first-class medical department. Smith was made President of the newly
Smith never married. He died on January 21, 1886, at his plantation home Evergreen.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://ourbaytown.com/Around_Baytown3/target4.html|title = Around Baytown - Hom eof Ashbel Smith Memorial - Daughters of the Republic of Texas}}</ref>
In 1886, in a special meeting of the regents immediately after Ashbel's death, the regents passed resolutions affirming the school was the "living monument to the high and noble aims of Ashbel Smith," adding: "It may be said of him that he was insofar as the practical inauguration of the University is concerned the "Father of the University of Texas."
He is buried in the State Cemetery in Austin.<ref name="cemetery.state.tx.us"/>
==Memorials==
[[File:Dr Ashbel Smith statue, Baytown, Texas.jpg|right|250px|Statue of Ashbel Smith in Baytown, Texas, his home]]
A number of memorials exist for Dr. Ashbel Smith, including:
* Ashbel Smith Professorships throughout the [[University of Texas]] system, held by notable scholars including [[David Crews]], [[Ian McCutcheon]], [[Clarence Paul Oliver]], [[Ilya Prigogine]], [[Emmette Redford]], [[David M. Young, Jr.]], and [[Morris Ziff]]
* The [[Ashbel Smith
* The Ashbel Smith Distinguished Alumnus Award is the highest alumni honor bestowed by UTMB's School of Medicine Alumni Association.
*
* Ashbel Street and [[Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District|Ashbel Smith Elementary School]] in [[Baytown, Texas]], where there is a statue of Ashbel Smith, M.D.
==See also==
{{Portal|Biography}}
* [[Mary Smith Jones]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
==
*[https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fsm04 Ashbel Smith] at the ''[[Handbook of Texas]]''
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[[Category:Secretaries of State of Texas]]
[[Category:Immigrants to the Republic of Texas]]
[[Category:Diplomats of the Republic of Texas]]
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[[Category:Texas Democrats]]
[[Category:Yale University alumni]]
[[Category:University of Texas at Austin people]]
[[Category:People of Texas in the American Civil War]]
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[[Category:1805 births]]
[[Category:1886 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century American politicians]]
[[Category:United States Army Medical Corps officers]]
[[Category:Burials at Texas State Cemetery]]
[[Category:Southern Historical Society]]
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