General Notes

TSHA handbook online: Smalley, Freeman   Bibliography James Milton Carroll ,A History of Texas Baptist ( Dallas: Baptist Standard, 1923. Paul C. Willison, Jr.  A Forgotten Mission to the Indians ( Galveston Letter Shop, 1965)

Grew up  near the present-day Clarksville ,Ohio.  He fought for six months in the War of 1812.  He had been a member of the Baptist church in Clinton County, Ohio, since 1808. After his discharge from the army he began to preach to his friends and neighbors.  he was ordained by his church in 1817.

Smalley's first trip to Texas was to visit relatives.  His aunt, Mary Smalley and her  daughter Rachel had movedwith their housbands , William Rabb and Joseph Newman to Pecan Point, Texas in 1819.  In 1822 Smalley traveled to New Orleans by boat and walked to Peacan Point, where he visited his cousins and preached to the community, thus evidently becoming the first Baptist minister to  preach in Texas.  About 1832 he moved his family from Ohio to Higginsville, Illinois, shere he established a Baptist church in his move in1834.  His son Freeman Smalley Jr.  , moved to Brushy Creek , south of the site of present -day Roundrock , Texas in 1846.  In 1848 Smalley Sr. followed him to Texas . He preached where ever  he could, but his audiences were small because of his abolitionist views.  He organized Union Baptist Church in Williamson County, the first antislavery Baptist church in Texas , in 1849.  he took a Unionist stand during the Civil War and endured threats and robbery. At the request of his children he sold his land in Texas and moved to Bourbon County , Kansas.