Smyth, Andrew Farney, 1817-1879

Andrew Farney Smyth (1817-1879), riverboat captain, surveyor, mill owner, farmer, merchant, and judge, was the second eldest son of Andrew and Susannah Smyth. After living in Pennsylvania and Tennessee, the family settled down near Moulton, Alabama, in 1817. Andrew F. Smyth moved to Jasper county, Texas, in 1835, and initially aided in managing the affairs of his brother George W. Smyth, a congressman and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and Constitution. Andrew gradually found his own success, first as a surveyor then as a grist and sawmill owner, employing 80 people full time at the Smyth Mills by 1855. Andrew entered a brief and ill-fated partnership between 1855 and 1859 with W. A. Ferguson to operate a general store that nearly resulted in Andrew's bankruptcy, but with his family and friends’ financial assistance, he was able to buy out Ferguson and turn Smyth's Mercantile into a profitable business.

Andrew is best known as a riverboat captain, a business he began in 1838 by building flatboats to ship cotton down river, then selling both the cotton and the timber of the boat upon arrival at the Gulf of Mexico. Around 1850, Andrew acquired the keelboat Jasper, for transporting cotton to the Gulf. Upon retirement, the Jasper 's hull was used to build a house on the Smyth acreage along the Angelina River. Andrew captained his first steamboat, Camargo, beginning in 1862, but persistent mechanical problems compelled him to replace it with the newly built Laura in the early 1870s. The best-known ship on the Neches for 25 years, the Laura hauled cargo and provided the first dependable passenger transportation in lower east Texas.

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