CONFEDERATE BIOGRAPHY: A FITTING TRIBUTE, Smith County, TX

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Submitted by Doris Peirce - ginlu@home.com   
21 October 2001
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TEXANS WHO WORE THE GRAY by Sid S. Johnson - pp 238-239

A FITTING TRIBUTE.

The board of school trustees of Tyler have set a precedent that might 
well be followed in other cities of Texas.  They have named their 
various school buildings in honor of prominent Texans who during the 
war between the States donned the uniform of grey and fought for the 
South. The building in the first ward is named for J. P. Douglas; the 
the second ward for Thomas R. Bonner; the third ward for Franklin N. 
Gary; the fourth ward for Bryan Marsh, and the Centrel School building 
for Richard B. Hubbard. In commenting on this act of the trustees an 
old Confederate Veteran "It was a happy inspiration that prompted the 
Tyler school board to perpetuate the memory of these distinguished
citizens who helped to make Tyler the business, educational and social 
center of East Texas. These men were not only prominent in the 
professional and business worlds, they were gallant officers in the 
Southern army. The school board could rot have paid a more fitting 
tribute. From every standpoint this is a wise and beautiful custom. 
The virtues of these brave, patriotic Tylerites (who now deep beautiful
Oakwood) have been perpetuated in enduring structures dedicated to the 
education of our boys and girls. It has well been said that no better 
thing can happen to the rising gen­erations than to be reminded daily of 
the deeds of the force­ful men who wrought so worthily for their city 
and State. Too, often we forget the great that live at our door-forget 
that they deserve our gratitude and that their lives are wor­thy of our 
emulation. And, too, we have in the commemorative buildings a perpetual 
reminder of the cosmopolitan character of our original citizenship, 
for while all of these worthies belonged "bone of bone and flesh of 
flesh" to the unmixed An­glo-Saxon stock that has held supremacy in 
the South yet each hailed from widely separated communities. Douglas
was from the hill country of north-eastern Alabama; Bonner was from 
the Mississippi Delta; Gary was a native son of South Carolina; Marsh 
was from the border line of Alabama and Mississippi; and Hubbard was 
born in Georgia. In this diversity of nativity and early environment 
these men were typical; for the City of Tyler to whose growth and 
character they contributed so much is a harmoniously wrought mosaic of 
the different strains of blood which made Southern civili­zation unique 
in the world. And yet we have had wrought into the social and business 
fabric of the town enough of the alien and foreign to add new flavor 
to our society and save us from too fixed a uniformity of type. Let 
this good policy, so well begun, be followed up not only in the naming 
of other school buildings, which the certain and steady growth of 
Tyler will make necessary, but in the naming of our streets as well. 
The avenues and thoroughfares of Tyler should have names that have a 
worthy local significance. The names and deeds of Tyler's long roll of 
famous lawyers, sol­diers, orators, scholars, journalists, and 
financiers should be perpetuated in the names given to our streets, 
parks and public buildings. One should almost be able to read the 
history of a town in the names of its avenues and public institutions. 
In the future let us add to the excellent and graceful work begun by 
Tyler's school board."