Francis (Smith) Simmons (1820)

Ancestors

Descendants

Died [date unknown] in Pike County, MS

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Biography

Francis was born in 1820. Francis Ward

Frances Smith b. 1821 Alabama, married Robert Reuben Simmons b. 1820 NC. 1880 CENSUS, PIKE COUNTY gives the following: Reuben Simmons, 60, born North Carolina; father born North Carolina, mother born North Carolina (here the Simmons family also disappears into history). Frances, 59, born Alabama; father born South Carolina, mother born Alabama.

Robert Reuben Simmons' father, in the Lang family history, is given as having been a William Seldon (Selden) Simmons. Robert Reuben also had a brother named "Jim". The family history gives Jim as having been possibly poisoned when he and his father went to pick up some slaves they had purchased.

The same family history gives Ward Smith's father as having been a Will Smith who was married to a Tsalagi (Cherokee) woman. The history reads:

"Seldon Lang remembers that he was told by his mother that Ward Smith's father (Will Smith) was an Indian fighter. He had been reared by the Indians and could speak their language, so he could talk with them and knew how to track them.

"When Indian marauders burned down the town of Roanoke, VA., there were only two people who survived. He became the tracker for a party of soldiers who tracked down the marauders. When the soldiers were in pursuit, they came upon the home of settlers burned by the same Indians, and the remains of the house still smoking.

"The story is told that a Cherokee Indian girl in her teens was out behind the place, standing on a stump picking green peaches. The soldiers and their tracker, who was Ward Smith's father, took the girl with them when they left. Smith took her for his wife and they had a family, which included Ward Smith.

"Apparently, this family ancestor (Will) was quite a character. He had a dog for years to help him in his tracking, and when the dog died he put him in a box and buried him in the human cemetery which was illegal. He evidently did many things which were unusual, which often caused him to get into trouble." And then it goes on to briefly describe in a rather deprecatory fashion how Ward Smith kept an American Indian viewpoint, preferred hunting over farming and was thus esteemed as lazy.

The 1790 Currituck Co. NC census gives a William Smith--2 males and 2 females in house, and a William Simmons--1 male over 16, 1 under 16, 5 females and 3 slaves. I don't know if this Smith or this Simmons (or a son of his) are the individuals I'm looking for...but that the Simmons and Smith and Etheridge families are connected in Currituck is interesting. Also, William Smith's wife's name seems to be Namath (according to the deed) and Namath is a pretty unusual given name. A problem with the family story is that the Roanoke area was not part of Virginia after 1665, and was renamed the County of Albemarle in NC. But it's interesting that Currituck was formed out of Albemarle and here we have these Simmons, Smiths and Etheridges. An image of Frances Smith Simmons is decidedly of American Indian heritage.

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Sources

• http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/NCCURRIT/2000-11/0975300169

• "Louisiana Deaths Index, 1850-1875, 1894-1959," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FS1V-QXD : 12 December 2014), Frances Smith in entry for M M Simmons, 21 Apr 1936; citing Franklinton, Washington, Louisiana, certificate number 5973, State Archives, Baton Rouge; FHL microfilm 2,203,733.

1. ↑ Entered by Allan Thomas, Saturday, November 30, 2013.

Acknowledgments

Thank you to Allan Thomas for creating Ward-8521 on 30 Nov 13. Click the Changes tab for the details on contributions by Allan and others. Special thanks to BobAnn Breland for her years of research on this family.