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This person is notable, and he has a Wikipedia profile. William "Bill" Smeathers/Smithers/Smothers was born in Pennsylvania about 1766. He was an American pioneer settler in Kentucky and later in Texas (where he died). He may also have lived for a time in Tennessee and Indiana.
In 1782 he was one of the first settlers in the Rough River area of Kentucky, where he built Smeathers Station.
Smeathers was in Hardin County, Kentucky, in 1795.
He was the first settler of Yellow Banks Kentucky (today, Owensboro), building a homestead there about 1797 on the banks of the Ohio River. Today there is a Bill Smeathers Park in Owensboro, Kentucky (Daviess County, Kentucky)[1]NOTE: The Lewis and Clark expedition convened and wintered at Yellow Banks/Owensboro, Kentucky during winter 1803-1804 Kentucky prior to departing westward that spring.
in 1803, he was an Officer in Kentucky's "Corn Stalk" Militia, where he participated in an expedition up the Wabash River against the Indians in the War of 1812 under General Samuel Hopkins.
In 1809 he was tried for murder (under the name Bill Smothers[2] for killing a man who had allegedly raped his sister. He was acquitted but was advised to leave the area temporarily for his own safety[3]
He then went to Texas as an Indian hunter and guide Hew was probably among the very first of the "Old 300" who arrived with Stephen F. Austin in San Antonio in 1821.[4]
He was married twice, the second time to Mary Winters of Tennessee.
He died in Texas in 1837.
He had 2 sons (John and Archibald) and 4 daughters (Elizabeth, Jane, and two others). Elizabeth and Jane married, respectively, George Stateler/Stetler and Daniel Grass, who were two of the first settlers of Spencer County Indiana (on the north bank of the Ohio River, adjacent to Owensboro Kentucky).
His Wikipedia profile says he was orphaned at age 13, but the father Jacob Smeathers linked in Wikipedia did not die until 1826.
Smeathers was the father-in-law of Daniel Grass, the first landowner in Spener County Indiana. Both of these men probably knew Abraham Lincoln already in Kentucky before any of them migrated to Indiana[5]
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