Thinking about John M. Smith’s date of birth

If I’m believing the information given in the Oscar Smith biography, John M. Smith was an early pioneer of Danville, Kentucky.  The wording in the biography – “the pioneer of the family in Kentucky” – made me think of researching the first settlers in Kentucky in nearby Fort Harrod, but maybe that’s not quite right.

In the 1830 Russell County census for John M. Smith, the oldest male in the family is listed as being between 50 and 60 years old.  Let’s say he was 60 years old, making his date of birth around 1770.  The first land which would later become Danville was purchased  around 1783 and the city was officially established in December of 1787.  So I suppose that John could have settled in the area around this time at the age of 17 or so.  I can stretch my thinking a bit to admit that the age given on the 1830 census was probably less than accurate, so maybe he was even older than 60.

The original pioneers of the Harrodsbug had arrived around 1775-6.  Can I stretch my estimate to fit that time frame?  I don’t know how old a young man would have to be to purchase land or obtain a land grant, but let’s say 17 years old.  For John to be 17 in 1776, he would have been born around 1759.  Let’s make it 1760 for easy math.  This would have made him 70 years old for the 1830 census. Is that reasonable?  I think it just might be.

On the other hand, John’s oldest known child was born around 1805.  Would a man be having his first child at the age of 45?  John did not have a will, so I cannot be sure that it WAS the oldest child. Perhaps John had other children who stayed behind when John moved to Russell County around 1825. That would make sense as a child born in 1805 would have been 20 years old at the time of the move.

Maybe the answer that I’m looking for can be found in land records.  Perhaps I can find a John Smith who sold or passed land to a son before leaving the county.

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1st Land Grants of (Current) Mercer County, Kentucky

http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~kymercer/grants.html – Also has a nice history of County Formations for the area.

Smith       Zachariah      400  Harrods Run    02-07-1780  1-9
                          1000  Harrods Run    05-29-1780  1-56
Zachariah had a brother named John...

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Naming Patterns – Thinking Out Loud

I’m still obsessed with John M. Smith (1760-ish – 1835) and trying to make a connection between him and a Smith family from the first permanent settlement in Kentucky – Fort Harrod.  John has been a brick wall for a long time, and some of the information I’ve discovered in the last year has given more clues – and more questions.

For years, I thought John had 4 children based on deeds when the siblings sold their portion of John’s land to each other, but researching the Russell County Court Records revealed 2 children that I didn’t know John had. Solomon and Benjamin Smith both passed away in 1840 and their older brothers, George and Elias, were the administrators of their estates.  I have the Court record, administrator and executor’s bonds, but nothing further.  One year later, a brother-in-law, Henry Payne, grants power of attorney to one of his relatives to make sure that his children get their rightful share of each estate.  Only one of these sons – Benjamin – ever showed up in a tax list. He was listed directly after his older brother, owned no property or horse, so to me, it appears that he is a young man living with his brother after the death of his father.  I estimated Solomon and Benjamin’s dates of birth guessing that they were about 20-21 years old at the time of death.  If they had been older, they should have shown up in the lists earlier. So now my group sheet shows 6 children.

Another unknown person showed up in the Court Records in 1833.  John M. Smith was the administrator for the estate of John B. Smith.  John B. never appears in a tax list or deed, and I can find no administrator or executor’s bond for this estate.  I had been hoping that I might find a John B. Smith in Mercer County and that probate records there might make the connection to John M, but I have not been able to find any records at all for a John B. Smith. Today, I was looking at John M’s group sheet and I noticed a 5 year gap between the 2nd and 3rd child and another gap between the 4th and 5th child. Could it be that John B. was also a child who wasn’t quite old enough to be listed on the assessment list?  If I insert a hypothetical John B. into the 2nd gap, I have the following children:

1) Sarah Smith – b. @1804 m. Henry Payne in 1828 d. bef. 1847
2) George A. Smith – b. 1805 m. Talitha Ellis @1834 d. 1890
3) Elias Smith – b. 1810 m. Elizabeth Meadows in 1834 d. 1853
4) Jane Smith – b. @1812 m. Thomas Simpson in 1838 d. 1880
5) John B. Smith – b. @1813?       d. 1833
6) Benjamin Smith – b. @1819?   d. 1840
7) Solomon Smith –  b. @1820?  d. 1840

I find an interesting (and highly speculative!) naming pattern.

Based on information from Genealogy.com, one common naming pattern was:

• The first son was named after the father’s father
• The second son was named after the mother’s father
• The third son was named after the father
• The fourth son was named after the father’s eldest brother

Based on this theory – George Smith (who received a land warrant on Harrod’s Run adjacent to James Harrod’s land in 1780) could be John M. father.  At this time, I only have 1 person in George Smith’s group sheet – a daughter who was married in 1787 – so this is certainly possible.

I don’t have the name of John M’s wife, but in theory, her father’s name would have been Elias. (Both of John M’s oldest sons also had sons named Elias AND George, so I think these are important names in the family.)

The 3rd son, the hypothetical John B, would be named after his father, John M.

Without knowing more on George Smith of Harrodsburg’s children, I cannot confirm that Benjamin or Solomon could be named after brothers.  However, Adam Smith, who died in the Mercer County in 1793, had 2 sons named Benjamin and Solomon.

So my new focus will be on finding all I can on George Smith.  At northamericanforts.com, the listing for Smith’s Station in Mercer County says it was built in 1784 by “George, Adam or Zachariah Smith”.  Does this imply they were related?  They don’t list a source, so I don’t know, but it would make sense. George got his land warrant in 1780 and Adam and Zachariah got theirs in 1781.  Of course, I can find all kinds of information on Adam and Zachariah, but next to nothing on George.  Based on various message boards, Adam and Zachariah’s father was John Michael Smith.  Could my John M. be named after John Michael?The search continues!

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Harrodsburg Original Land Grants Map

This is on my computer desktop. I have no idea where I found this, although it HAD to be through a Google Books search because of the highlighted words.  I tried to find it again, but no luck…  Wish I could get rid of the highlights.

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THE hint

This is the hint that started my Danville quest.  From “The History of Kentucky” (written in 1922) page 437-438 found in Google Books. (My own additions in parentheses.)

Oscar M. Smith has been a member of the Russellville bar for fourteen years, and during a large part of that time has occupied his present position as city attorney. Whatever he has found to do he has done to the limit of his strength and abilities, both of which have been of the highest order, and thus while rising in professional prestige he has also won and held public confidence and regard.  Mr. Smith was born in Russell County, Kentucky, August 21, 1872, and is a son of Rev. Elias and Mary C. (Davis) Smith.

The great-grandfather (my John M. Smith) was a native of Virginia and was the pioneer of the family in Kentucky, where he was an early settler of Danville and became a large landholder and the owner of many slaves.  His son, Elias Smith (father of Rev. Elias Smith) was born at Danville, and was twenty-one years of age when he came to Russell County, Kentucky. Following in the foorsteps of his father, he became a planter whose broad acres were tilled by slave labor, and his death occurred on his plantation when he was forty-eight years of age (the dates on his tombstone: 9 Feb 1810 – 21 July 1853) before the birth of his grandson (Oscar).  Elias Smith married Elizabeth Meadors (sic) who was born in Russell County in 1823 and died at Marrowbone, Cumberland County, this state in 1895. (I have confirmed the Elias Smith owned a large amount of land and slaves)

Rev. Elias Smith was born in 1847 in Russell County, Kentucky, and resided there on is farm until 1882. In that year he removed to Jamestown, this county, where he was a preacher of the Methodist Episcopal faith for one year, then going to Monticello, Kentucky, where he carried on preaching for four years.  The five years that followed were spent at Greenville, and for one year he was pastor of the church at Cerulean Springs, a like period being passed at Dixon. In October, 1905, he came to Russellville, where he purchased a home and farm, his main reason being to educate his daughters in Logan College, although he still carried on his ministerial labors. While driving in the streets of Russellville, April 21, 1914, his horse became frightened and ran away, and in the smash-up which followed Rev. Elias Smith was killed. (I wonder if I can find a newspaper account?)

More information follows about the life of Rev. Smith, which I don’t think helps me in my quest.

Notes that I wrote to myself:

Oscar M. Smith – b. 21 Aug 1872 in Russell County.

Parents – Rev. Elias Smith and Mary C. Davis
b. 1847 in Russell County
moved to Monticello, Wayne Co. in 1883
d. 21 Apr 1914

Grandparents – Elias Smith and Elizabeth Meadows
b. in Danville (new information. According to “Russell Co, Kentucky, cemetery records by Irma Shepherd, Elias’ tombstone says he was born in 1810)
Elias came to Russell County at age 21 (abt. 1826-1831)
d. on his plantation at age 48
m. Elizabeth Meadows who was born in Russell County in 1823 d. in Marrowbone, Cumberland Co, 1895 (I know they were married in 1834 in Russell County)

Great-Grandfather – Would be John M. Smith
native of Virginia (all of Kentucky was Virginia until 1792)
early settler of Danville
large landowner with many slaves

There are several John Smith’s listed in Mercer County tax records and one in particular has 450 acres up to 1824. In at least 1 of these tax records, he’s listed with a military rank.  There is no John Smith with 450 acres listed in Mercer County in 1825 or 1826 – about the same time that John M. Smith purchases land in Russell County. I’d love to find land transactions that show when this man left Mercer County. Of course, if it happened to mention that he was moving to Russell County, I wouldn’t turn that down! I need to order the films and maybe have a chance to look at them over Thanksgiving break.

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Early Kentucky History Research

Thinking about RootsTech has got me in a genealogy mood, so I’m trying to think of “quick” things I can research and accumulate that might be helpful to me when I have a full day to research.  I’ve decided to concentrate on my Smith line.  (Doesn’t everyone have a Smith line?)

I have a brick wall at John M. Smith who was part of Russell County from the day it was formed.  I have a cousin who hired a professional researcher to try to break the wall down and he shared the results with me, but I have to say that I don’t agree with the analysis.  I took this researcher’s hypothesis – which they admitted was speculation because they could find no direct proof – and followed each family member forward in time and didn’t find anyone who could be my family.  Lot’s of questions, but no lightbulb moments.

In my own research, I found a biography of a descendant of John M. who is not in my direct line.  This biography did not use too many names, but it did list relationships such as “the grand-father of the subject”, etc.  I made a simple tree with the information that was given and it indicated that John’s family had been some of the original settlers of the Danville area – the first part of Kentucky ever settled.

So my current plan is to follow all Smith’s in the area forward as much as I can to eliminate all lines that I can and see if I can find a potential link to my family.  I’m basically talking about a 50 year time-frame.  The first settlers came to Kentucky around 1775 (Kentucky became a state in 1792) and John M. is in Russell County in 1826.

So when I do have a few minutes to research, I usually surf for information about Fort Harrod – the first settlement in Kentucky. And I often find an interesting image or map or list of individuals that I need to do a better job of keeping track of.  I think I’m going to use my blog for that purpose. I won’t be stressing over being analytical with the information at this point or giving thoughts on how it might fit in. I know that I just won’t ever post anything if I try to do that.  And later, when I do get a full day or week-end to work on my files, I’ll know exactly where to look to find that map or article and I can begin to put things together that way.

I don’t want to put all my eggs into the “Danville Basket”, so I’m also going to try to research Wayne County history because the Smith’s area of Russell County was carved out of Wayne County in 1825 and I might find something helpful that way as well.

Kentucky researchers!  If you have helpful links or information, I would LOVE to hear from you!

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A New Puzzle

This week, my library received the FHL films that I ordered for Kentucky Land Grants.  I had 4 specific grants to look at.  I thought they would be certificates of some kind and I probably wouldn’t get much information from them, but instead, they look like deeds with land descriptions and such.  Neat!  But they leave me with more questions than I had originally, probably because I still don’t completely understand how the land grants work.

Two of the land grants were given jointly to John M. Smith and James Gilbert.  I thought I might be able to find out if these men were related. Brother-in-law maybe.  It gives me no information like that.  But the pages do give me warrant numbers.

Now I need to research what I can do with these numbers. Can I tell if they were military warrants?  I guess I thought that’s what I WAS getting with this microfilm, so I’m confused. There are also many other names in here and after talking with my librarians, we believe it is almost like a provenance of the land warrant because of an abbreviation that looks like assee with the two ee’s like superscripts. 

They believe that means “assignee” so I’m going with that for now.  When I did a quick “google” of land patent assignee, it tells me it’s the same as the buyer.  (Feel free to comment with any corrections or further info!!)

The two grants are on consecutive pages in the book.  The first grant only mentions John M. Smith and James Gilbert.  But the second grant says: “there is granted by the said Commonwealth unto John M. Smith and James Gilbert assignee of said Smith who was assignee of Timothy Burgess assignee of Braxton Carter who was assignee of Elijah Hutchison a certain tract or parcel of land….”

So I interpret that to mean that Elijah Hutchison earned the original warrant. Braxton Carter purchased it and sold it to Timothy Burgess who sold it to John M. Smith who sold part of it to James Gilbert.  Does anyone know if I’m correct in this?

I have 2 warrant numbers within the document and a different warrant number in the margin.  Can I follow the land through these numbers? That’s what I’ll need to figure out next.

Time to learn more about the whole Land Grant system!  I have several different presentations on my computer about the process, and I thought I understood it pretty well, but now that I have actual information to follow up on, I can see that I need to watch those again with these specifics in hand.

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A Wonderful Find – Now What?

I’m so excited about some discoveries I’ve made doing research with Google since Saturday!

I had read a story that one of my ancestors, along with his brothers, had a trading post in the Danville, Kentucky area around the time of Kentucky statehood and I wanted to try to confirm that.  The last ancestor that I have confirmed information on is John M. Smith from Russell County.  I know that John purchased land in 1827 (Russell County was formed in 1826) and also had two land grants around the same time.  I don’t know if John was in the area before his area became Russell County or where he might have come from before that.  I don’t know his wife’s name or his parents.

I’ve latched onto the Danville area trading post as the clue that’s going to move me back a generation.  But I have not been able to find anything helpful because there are too many Smiths in the county.  While doing a Google search for trading posts, I discovered that I should be Googling the term “Stations” instead of trading posts.  Then I came across a link that listed “Smith’s Station” located on the road from Danville to the mouth of Dick’s River.  Now I had a better idea of which part of Mercer County to be looking for the Smith’s in Mercer County.  Last night, I was THRILLED to find a map showing all of the pre-1800 Stations in Kentucky and there was Smith’s Station!  Another web site told me the 3 people who are attributed with beginning the station. Could these 3 names be John’s father and his brothers?

So I’m excited to get back to the library on Friday to see what I can find in the Mercer County history books and tax lists.  My hope has been to find that some of the people in John’s part of Russell County (witnesses, neighbors, etc) were also in the same area of Mercer County in the early 1800′s to help me confirm which John Smith in Mercer County could be my John Smith.

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Smith Feast or Smith Famine!

I’m continuing on my search for information on John M. Smith (17?? – 1835). Here’s what I know:

• Russell County Kentucky was formed in Dec/Jan of 1825/26.
• John Smith “of Russell County” bought 100 acres in April 1827 and appears in the Russell County tax list for the first time.
• On Dec 31, 1827, John received a land grant along with James Gilbert for a total of 200 acres.  (If anyone knows why “joint” grants were given, I’d love to know! I’ve ordered the land grant films, but I’m impatient!)
• I have the tax listings for John every year through 1835 when he died.
• John’s land was partially in Russell County and partially in Wayne County.
• Two of John’s sons, George and Elias, also appear in the tax lists, giving me approximate dates of birth based on when they appear for the first time.
• In 1847, the “heirs of John M. Smith” sell all of their shares of land to their brother, Elias.  This deed mentions that the deceased Solomon Smith’s land was one-sixth of the estate. Based on this deed, I know the names of 5 children – George, Elias, Mary Jane, Elizabeth and Solomon.  Was the last sixth for their mother?

I’ve been trying to find where John M. Smith was before Russell County.  Was he in the same area, which was Wayne County before Russell County was formed?  Or did he immigrate from somewhere else?  I have one tiny clue in a great-grandson’s biography, but so far, I have not been able to confirm it. My “Smith Feast” is the fact that there are many John Smith’s in every county that I look at.  Obviously, because this is early 1800′s, I have no census records to see which John Smith might be my John Smith.  My “Smith Famine” is the fact that Solomon Smith does not appear in any tax lists or deeds other than the deed mentioned above.

I decided to look for clues in land and court records.  I currently have films of the first 3 court order books.  I began by using the index to look for records.  As I was scrolling through the film, I happened to stop on a page and John’s name popped out to me.  This was an “Ah-Ha” moment for me – the index didn’t include every mention of a name, only the names of those who initiated something in the court.  Back to the beginning of the film!  I began to read (ok, I skimmed) every page and found many things.

• John was a Justice of the Peace from 1830 till his death.
• John was quite often asked to survey the best location for new roads in his part of the county.
• John was the administrator of the estate of John B. Smith (another “famine” as I cannot find this name anywhere else!)
• John took in a “poor boy of the county”, John Asberry, who became his son’s apprentice after John died.

I had been focusing on locating anything with John’s name so I was concentrating on files before 1836, but yesterday, I began to skim Book 3 and found two “pleasant” surprises:

• Sept 1840 – George A. Smith (son of John) became the administrator for the estate of Solomon Smith.  Ah-ha!  A more specific date of death. Because Solomon never appears in the tax records, I am guessing that Solomon was not yet 21 at his death.
• Oct 1840 – Elias Smith (son of John) became the administrator for the estate of Benjamin Smith. There is more than one Benjamin Smith in Russell County, but I have never researched them because their ages and locations did not match my family.  I went back for a closer look and discovered that this Benjamin does appear in the tax lists, but only once.  In 1840, his is listed between Elias and George.  He owns no land, but does have a horse.  From this record, I am guessing that he had turned 21, and was therefore born around 1819. I believe this is the name for the final sixth of John’s estate!

I’m happy to have found these names and dates, but as usual, I have many more questions.  For my “feast” name – which John Smith is my John Smith? For my “famine” names – who was John’s wife?  I have yet to see her name anywhere, even in deeds.  Who was John B. Smith?  Was he related?  If so, how? Was he from Russell County?  If not, will this be the connection I need to show where John M. came from?  Where can I find more information on the “estates” of John M. Smith, John B. Smith, Solomon and Benjamin Smith?

Today, I will continue reading through Book 3 to see if there is more to glean. I’ve ordered and am greatly anticipating the films for the Kentucky Land Grants and Russell County deeds.  I’ve looked at the deed film before, but now I know that I can’t rely on the index.  And I found an online index that shows that there is an indenture that involves 3 of the siblings – including Benjamin – so I’m anxious to see what I’ll find next! Sadly, Spring Break begins just when I expect these films to arrive. So these mysteries will be swirling in my mind as I lay on the beach. How strange is it that I’m kinda wishing I didn’t have to go???

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John M. Smith (AKA The Brick Wall)

I’ve been researching John M. Smith for years. YEARS! He definitely falls into my “Madness Monday” category!

Here’s what I know about John M. Smith

• I know that John was listed in the Russell County tax records from 1827 – 1835.
• I know that John was listed in the 1830 Russell County Census.
• In the census, John had in his home: 1 male aged 10-15, 4 males aged 20-30 and 1 male aged 50-60.  1 female aged 15-20, 1 female aged 20-30 and 1 female aged 50-60.
• If I assume that all of the younger people in this census are children, then the oldest would have been born around 1800.
• I know that John’s estate inventory was submitted to court in October 1835.
• Based on land records, I know that John had 5 children, 4 of which I can follow:

1. Sarah Smith who married Henry Payne and died before 1845. She is married before 1830, so she is not included in John’s census.
2. George A. Smith 1805-1890 (these dates are on his tombstone.  This is my ancestor.)
3. Elias Smith abt. 1810-1853
4. Jane Smith abt 1813 – 1880.  She married Thomas Simpson in 1838.
5. Solomon Smith – the only thing I know about Solomon is that he received some of John’s land after he died, but he was listed as deceased by 1842 in another deed. George and Elias submitted John’s inventory and took over his tax listings, so I assume Solomon was not the oldest son.

Last week, we had three days of no school due to icy weather so I decided to follow up this little clue that I had found.  In a published biography for one of John’s great-grandsons, there was a line that stated that the great-grandfather (John) was an early settler of Danville, Kentucky.  I had a note tucked away in my files that on another genealogy site, another great-grandson had a descendant who stated that he was told that one of John’s sons was born in Virginia and came to Kentucky with his parents and settled near Danville where his father (John) and brothers (John’s brothers?) operated a trading post. The printed biography corroborated the location in the story I’d read so I thought, Yeah!  Something new to research!

Danville is right on the boundary between Mercer and Lincoln County.  And of course, John Smith is a rather common name so I thought it might be best to start with what I could find in Danville itself.

In the book, “Early Days of Danville”, there was a John M. Smith mentioned for the formation of a Baptist church, but how can I know if this is MY John Smith?  I can find mentions of “John Smith” in other Danville books, but nothing that I’d call “proof”.  I was hoping to find a John Smith mentioned in regards to a trading post since that would be the only way I can think of to feel pretty sure I was on the right track. However, I see information on alot of John Smith’s with a middle initial and I’ve never seen more than 1 John M. Smith, so I did make a copy of this page.

I decided to try a different tactic.  I know that John M. Smith shows up in the Russell County tax records in 1827.  Was there a John Smith in Mercer County tax lists that disappeared about the same time?  The first bio I had read stated that John’s son had followed in the footsteps of his father and “became a planter whose broad acres were tilled by slave labor”. The Mercer County tax lists show about 3 different John Smiths in the time frame I’m looking for, but 2 of them had no land.  The other had 450 acres and several slaves. I followed the tax records from 1811 to 1828.  This John Smith disappeared from the tax records in Mercer county after 1824.  If my ancestor had an uncommon name, I’d be excited by this information, but with the name John Smith?  I could probably find a John Smith in just about every county in Kentucky!

Maybe I would find a lightbulb moment with the census records.  My biggest challenge is that John Smith died in 1835, so that means I can’t use the children’s information to tell one John from another.  And all of the known children of John came of age in Russell County, so I don’t expect to find their names anywhere else. I made a chart – in Excel of course – to help me compare the different Johns and I can say which ones I think are most likely, but I keep coming back to the fact that there are probably John Smiths in every county and there would probably be several that COULD fit the information that I have, so it’s purely a wishful, barely educated guessing process.

I also found a newspaper online from Mercer County in 1804 in which a Lincoln County man lived “six miles south of Danville”.  That reminded me that I have to consider Lincoln County as well to cover all of the Danville area.

I think my next step is going to have to be land records for Mercer County.  I ordered them on Saturday. I’m not holding my breath for a deed that says “John M. Smith, who is moving to Russell County, now sells this land to so and so…” so again, how will I know for sure?

I’m also looking at records at the Allen County Public Library for Wayne County, Kentucky.  John’s land was partly in Russell and partly in Wayne, and Russell County was formed in 1826 so perhaps the clue will be in Wayne Co. I’ve searched the tax records for a John Smith with land entered in the same name as the land listed in the Russell County tax lists – so far, no luck.  Just before leaving the library Saturday, I also found 2 books of records for early Mercer County – court orders and marriages.  It’s at the top of my list to look at next Saturday (or next school snow day, whichever comes first!)

So right now, my strategy is to collect and collect and collect.  Anything that seems likely based on locations and dates.  Keeping track of witnesses and neighbors and such and then hopefully, when the land records film does arrive, maybe something will click.

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