Erastus "Deaf" Smith (19 April 1787 – 30 November 1837) was an American frontiersman who fought in the Texas Revolution and led a company of Texas Rangers after the war. Deaf Smith County, Texas is named in his honor.
Biography[]
Erastus Smith was born in Dutchess County, New York in 1787, and his family moved to Port Gibson, Mississippi in 1798. He moved to hot Texas in 1821 with the goal of improving his health, but he soon became deaf, earning him his lifelong nickname "Deaf Smith". He married a Mexican woman in 1822 and had several children, and he moved freely between Anglo and Hispanic Texan societies, and he served as a guide, scout, and spy due to his knowledge of both societies. When the Texas Revolution broke out, he joined the Texian Army when the Mexicans refused to let him into his own home; he had initially intended to stay neutral. He served as a courier to William B. Travis at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, and he gathered intelligence for Sam Houston before the Battle of San Jacinto, when he captured the Mexican Army general Martin Perfecto de Cos. After the war, he moved to Richmond in Fort Bend County, and, on 17 March 1837, he led a company of Texas Rangers to victory over a numerically superior Mexican force near Laredo. He died in Richmond, Texas that same year. Deaf Smith County in the Texas Panhandle is named for him.