The Life and Legacy of Anne Elisabeth Britton Davis Smith (1838–1925)

Anne Elisabeth "Lizzie" Britton Davis Smith, wife of Governor Edmund J. Davis, was born on March 1, 1838. She was the daughter of Forbes N. Britton, Jr., an officer in the United States Army, and Rebecca Ann (Millard) Britton of St. Mary's County, Maryland. It is not certain where she was born. Official reports show her birthplace variously as Jefferson Barracks in Missouri, Indian Territory, Arkansas, and Louisiana. She was the younger sister of John Hampton Britton, the twin sister of Edward Wharton Britton (a physician who died on November 10, 1865, in Corpus Christi), and the older sister of Rebecca Forbes Britton Worthington. Her mother was a Roman Catholic, and Lizzie was baptized in that faith and remained an active Catholic throughout her life. Anne, or Lizzie as she was commonly known, was sent to a Catholic boarding school, Sacred Heart Academy, in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, while her father was still in the army. She entered on January 1, 1847, when only nine years old. She graduated in 1854. In school she showed a progressive outlook concerning women's rights and joined with a classmate to write a petition to Congress that requested women be given the right to vote (see WOMAN SUFFRAGE).

The Britton family moved to Corpus Christi in 1850 following Lizzie's father's resignation from the army. There her father became a commission merchant and a prominent advocate for the development of Corpus Christi. He was elected to the Texas Senate in 1857 and then again in 1859. During the secession crisis he was a prominent supporter of Sam Houston and advocated remaining in the Union. On April 6, 1858, Lizzie married Judge Edmund Jackson (E. J.) Davis of Brownsville, possibly having met him the previous Christmas while he was in Corpus Christi on circuit as a district court judge. Since Davis's judicial district ran from Corpus Christi to Rio Grande border, the two lived variously in Corpus Christi, Brownsville, and Laredo. Their first child, Britton Davis, was born in Brownsville on June 4, 1860.

 In the midst of the secession crisis in 1861, E. J., like Lizzie's father, supported the Union. In the spring of 1862 he chose to flee Texas rather than be conscripted into the Confederate Army or be arrested. Lizzie, pregnant with her second child, remained with her mother in Corpus Christi rather than risk the perilous journey to the border (see CIVIL WAR and CORPUS CHRISTI, BATTLE OF). After the birth of their son, Waters, on March 15, 1862, Lizzie attempted to join her husband, who was raising a Union cavalry regiment in Louisiana. She initially approached Confederate general Hamilton Bee, who had attended her wedding, to secure a pass to leave the state through Brownsville. Bee complied, but when she arrived at the border after a five-day trip, she was told that the general had decided that she should not be allowed to leave and ordered her to return to Corpus Christi. She told Bee's representative, Col. Philip N. Luckett, that the return trip would kill her, but Luckett insisted she return and told her that if she tried to cross the Rio Grande, she would be shot. General Bee later informed her that if her husband invaded the state, she would be moved to the interior and should be prepared to have her throat cut. Lizzie defiantly replied that he could come and cut her throat. In September 1862 Adm. David G. Farragut sent Lt. Cdr. John W. Kittredge of the United States Navy to get the Davis family out of Texas. Kittredge landed under a flag of truce in Corpus Christi and met with General Bee, but again Bee refused to let the family leave. Lizzie persisted, however, and in December 1862 she obtained a pass to go to Brownsville but not to leave the state. On the evening of December 24, wrapping herself in a Mexican blanket, she accompanied friends to the border where the guards failed to ask her identity. She crossed on the ferry, only to find her husband in New Orleans. He returned in March 1863, and they were finally reunited.

Lizzie's troubles had not ended, however, for on March 15, 1863, a party of Confederate soldiers crossed the Rio Grande and attacked the federal camp where the family was located. Davis, rather than endanger his family, surrendered. Lizzie reportedly pled for her husband's life, but he was taken away. Others who were seized, including Capt. William W. Montgomery, were lynched, but Davis was turned over to General Bee. Lizzie was determined to cross the border to find out what had happened to her husband, but when Davis's capture on Mexican soil threatened an international incident, Bee released him to return to Lizzie and the boys. The family left for New Orleans, where E. J. resumed command of his regiment. Lizzie, Britton, and Waters then traveled to Maryland, where they stayed with her mother's family for the rest of the war.

Lizzie and the boys rejoined E. J. and returned to Corpus Christi by the summer of 1866. In Corpus Christi she quickly emerged as a social leader, including inviting Federal soldiers stationed there to social events, while her husband became involved in Reconstruction politics. In 1869 E. J. Davis was elected governor and Lizzie, the boys, and her mother took up residence in the Governor’s Mansion in Austin. They arrived in the city on March 13, 1870. She earned an early reputation for her social skills. In 1870 she attended the Grand State Ball held to celebrate the state’s return to the Union even though her husband could not go. Her dance card reportedly was full, and she danced every dance, ending with a reel after 1 a.m. As first lady she also was known as a gracious hostess who enjoyed entertaining. When the legislature was in session, she held receptions for both Republican and Democratic legislators each Thursday, either at the mansion or the governor's offices in the Capitol and served champagne punch and chicken salad. At these functions she carried on what was described as accomplished passages of arms, retorts, and sallies with legislators from both parties. The encounters were considered delightful and convinced many, at least for the time, to subscribe to her Republican politics. Her sense of refinement also ran to improving the grounds of the Governor's Mansion. She had the grounds landscaped with benches, gravel paths, small fountains, and plantings of petunias, narcissus, hyacinths, tea roses, and hollyhocks in the back yard as well as a kitchen garden.

At the same time that she took control over housekeeping and social events at the Governor's Mansion, Lizzie showed a continued interest in political affairs that she exhibited when she wrote the petition to Congress for woman suffrage. In the legislative session, during the summer of 1870, she and her mother frequently attended debates over her husband's legislative agenda. She became personally involved in one of these debates when she voiced open criticism of statements made by Senator Marmion H. Bowers against the militia bill being considered that June. During Bowers's remarks, Lizzie voiced her disagreement, calling out loud that one of his statements was a lie. Afterwards, she engaged in an exchange with Bowers, which he remembered as made in jest, and told him that she wished he was dead and buried and that her husband's quarrels were hers. The correspondent for the Houston Times and the Galveston News, however, reported it as an example of her lobbying for her husband's agenda, something that was not considered womanly, wifely, or prudent at the time. Democratic newspapers used the episode for political effect again during the 1871 Congressional election after a Democratic speaker, John T. Whitfield, suggested that in her lobbying activities Lizzie had associated with the prostitutes who frequented the legislative chambers' lobby. Most Democratic newspapers came to her defense and praised her character, although they continued to publish the accusation. The editor of the Republican Houston Union, however, almost became involved in a duel with Whitfield to defend Lizzie's honor.

How contemporary women saw Lizzie's engagement in politics is little known. For some, however, she may have come to be seen as an example of the possibility of changing roles for women. One woman wrote about Lizzie in a poem that she sent the Houston Union after the accusations against her in the summer of 1870. In it she praised Lizzie and wrote:

          Lady, I often think of thee

          As one I'd love to know, to see;

          Fancy oft pictures the as one

          Who ne'er by flattery was won.

          Whose woman's heart would fully scorn

          The breast where such a passion's born

          Alike I fancy you care less

          For those who malice oft express.

          You must be nerved against the steel

          Which both these sins would make you feel.

Governor Davis was not reelected in 1873, and he stepped down from office in 1874. In the years afterward, Lizzie and the family continued to live in Austin, where E. J. practiced law and continued to head the state's Republican party. She remained an ardent supporter of E. J.'s political ambitions, even hoping that he would receive a cabinet position in the administration of Chester Arthur in 1881. Lizzie paid a price for E. J.'s politics, however, and found herself cut off from society by the antagonism directed towards her husband because of his continuing challenge to Democratic rule. That part of her life ended when E. J. Davis died on February 7, 1883. Perhaps reflecting the esteem that many Texans held for her, Lizzie received hundreds of letters of sympathy, forcing her to place a card in the state's newspapers thanking them since she was unable to reply to them all.

After E. J.'s death Lizzie remained in Austin for a while. A visitor in 1884 found her "charming" and "never speaking disparagingly of those who used her ill, accepting her trials for the best." He found her possessing stately grace. She was active in the affairs of the Catholic Church and assisted in the preparation of a concert to be given at the dedication of the Catholic cathedral in Austin in 1884. Known from her youth as an accomplished musician, she played the violin, guitar, piano, and organ, and was known for her voice. She sang a duet with a Mrs. Ord on the evening of the concert. She still was engaged in political matters in the midst of these other activities. Shortly after E. J.'s death, she reputedly received an offer from the Arthur Administration to take over the position of post mistress in Austin but refused it. She ultimately did take a position but wound up in a conflict with Postmaster J. C. DeGress, the former superintendent of education in her husband's administration, when DeGress gave her a leave of absence, then placed his wife in her position and paid her Lizzie's salary.

Lizzie left Austin in 1886 and moved to Grand Coteau, Louisiana, where she married Alexander Joseph "Pots" Smith. Smith was the son of Raphael Smith, a planter and pre-war slave owner. The family history is that Smith was a childhood friend from Lizzie's school days and that she and her mother had kept up with Smith's family when they visited Grand Coteau over the years. Even in Louisiana she remained in contact with affairs in Austin, however, and in 1887, along with former Secretary of State James P. Newcomb, she worked to help the state secure indemnity for nearly $20,000,000 spent protecting the frontier during the Davis administration. Lizzie was allowed to access old papers of the governor that had not been placed in any of the state's administrative departments to do this. In 1889 she received an appointment as postmistress in Grand Coteau. Her second husband died on June 5, 1898, and Lizzie, afterwards, moved to Washington, D. C., where she lived with her sister's family. She died on May 7, 1925, and was buried in the plot of her brother-in-law, Charles Worthington, in Rock Creek Cemetery in Washington, D. C.