Thomas Smith Sr. (1677 - abt. 1753)

Born 20 Nov 1677 in New Jersey

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about 1753 at about age 75 in Frederick Co., Virginia Colony Settlement, Rowan County, North Carolina

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Biography

Thomas Smith was born 20 Nov 1677 near Burlington, New Jersey. The area was first settled in 1677, when a group consisting primarily of Quakers settled in the area of Crosswicks, the oldest of the Chesterfield's three "villages". They sheltered in tents made from the ship KENT's sails. ^{[1] [2]}

On the 2nd of July 1735 Thomas Smith and Thomas' brother-in-law John PARKE had their farms confiscated during the notorious Coxe Land Swindle, so they returned with some neighbors the following night and roughed-up Thomas' two ex-field hands to whom the sheriff had turned over both men's property; they threatened the sheriff and judge and the Governor with mayhem and hanging and then set out with their families to the Virginia Colony highlands with prices on their heads. --- Circa 1750 Thomas' son John and wife Rebecca resettled in the Yadkin River Valley of North Carolina. Source; Gary Smith

In July 1735 after their property was taken away by authorities in the Hopewell Township Coxe Affair, Thomas and his wife Mary removed to Orange Dist. (now Hampshire County), Virginia Colony. (In 1738 Frederick Co. was formed from Orange Dist. and in 1754 Hampshire County was created by the Virginia General Assembly from parts of Frederick and Augusta counties). They were accompanied by their grown children, brother-in-law John Parke, Sr. and his family, and several neighbors.

Research Notes

From Miner Descent for Roger Parkes, Sr ^[3]

Baptized February 28, 1702 by Rev. Mr. John Talbot: John and Roger Parke, ye children of Rogr. Parke. Thomas, Andrew, Elizabeth, Mary and Hannah Smith, the children of Andrew Smith. William Scholey (son) of Robt. Scholey. By now, settlers had cleared land, built cabins and barns, widened paths, and established a ferry to connect with the Philadelphia road where many went to shop or to church so that the Jersey wilderness was becoming a productive, English style, rural community of isolated farms joined by lanes and a few wagon roads. In 1707 Col. Coxe acted to reclaim the Hopewell tract he had conveyed to the West Jersey Society by persuading the Cornbury Ring to make a new survey of the Hopewell tract in his name. Then, in 1708 the Coxes had a major setback: the Crown removed Lord Cornbury as Governor because of the turmoil caused by his obvious corruption. ...

Between 1731 and 1760 about half of the families of Hopewell’s “Fifty Men’s Compact” moved where land was cheaper and the government more trustworthy

A great attraction for these victims of political corruption was that in 1745 North Carolina was exceptionally well governed. Gov. Gabriel Johnston was an honest, capable Scottish physician and professor who on arrival found the colony in pitiable condition, and tried earnestly to better its welfare. About 1745, the New Jersey group (perhaps a dozen or more families) left Back Creek in a wagon train bound for the Yadkin.

Based on events after arrival, their leaders were probably Jonathan Hunt and Thomas Smith, but they were almost surely guided by the famous ”Waggoneer” and explorer, Morgan Bryan who guided other groups to this general area, and in 1748 brought his own family from the Opequon to form Morgan’s Settlement on the south bank of Deep Creek, four miles above the “Shallow Ford” of the Yadkin. So began the River Settlements, best reached from the north via an old Indian warpath, widened and renamed The Yading Path. About 1745/6 Thomas Smith received land on Swearing Creek, but his Bladen deed is missing. At age 71, on September 29, 1748, Smith was at Newburn with men from other western communities, petitioning the North Carolina Assembly to form Anson County, because they had to travel over a hundred miles to Bladen court house. The next day, September 30, 1748, he was appointed Justice of the Peace for Bladen, –and under Colonial N.C. law, only landowners could be Justices of the Peace. On November 5, 1748, a survey was made on Swearing Creek for Robert Heaton adjoining Thomas Smith; chain bearers: John Titus and Jonathan Hunt. These men are the first four landowners identified in Jersey Settlement. More than four men were needed in a frontier settlement, so it’s likely others came in this first group, young men from Back Creek (not necessarily Hopewell) who were unable to buy land at first, but, being needed, lived with friends or kinsmen. Perhaps some did buy land on arrival, their Bladen deeds missing, like Smith’s. John Titus, Jr. (1748 Swearing Creek chain bearer for Heaton), after losing his Hopewell land, joined his wife’s uncle, Thomas Smith, on Back Creek before moving with him to the Yadkin. From Origins of the Jersey Settlement of Rowan County, North Carolina: First Families of Jersey Settlement. By Ethel Stroupe 1996. (Reprinted by permission of the author from vol. 11, no. 1, February 1996, Rowan County Register, PO Box 1948, Salisbury, NC 28145)

Thomas Smith and John Parke did not wait for High Sheriff Bennet Bard to pursue nor for Governor Cosby to declare them outlaws. Before dawn, they had crossed the Delaware river, and were safely beyond the reach of New Jersey's royal officials. Two years after receiving eviction notices, some in Hopewell who had not paid for their land a second time nor paid "rent" on their own homes, fled to avoid being thrown into Debtor's Prison and having their personal property seized.

Research Notes

After 1746, their land in the Virginia piedmont proving less than fruitful, son John and wife Rebecca moved on to the rich Yadkin River Valley of the North Carolina piedmont, where their son, Hon. Thomas Smith II, later wrote his will, dying after 12 Aug 1751, leaving behind his wife Sarah and their young children Ann, Elizabeth and Charles, and two apprenticed orphan boys. This young man (Thomas II) in his early 30s was the Thomas confused with his elder grandfather Thomas who with his wife 'Mary' died in Virginia in the 1750s during the French & Indian War; the elder Thomas' grey-haired brother-in-law John Parke was slain there and his head propped against a fencepost as a 'warning to other settlers'. Son John died in Rowan Co. at his home on the Swearing Creek branch of the the Yadkin River before 3 Jan 1763.

Sources

1. ↑ SMITH FAMILY BIBLE
2. ↑ GLORIA SMITH PADACH ARTICLE 1994, DAVID C. KRAVETZ, ALLICE REYNOLDS, 1814, ROWAN COUNTY REGISTER PP2049-2056, AMERICAN GENEALOGIST Data: Text: AMERICAN GENEALOGIST VOL 24, NO 2, PP 102-104, 1948; VOL 52 NO 4 PP 227-229, OCT 1976; VOL 49, NO 3 P 169, JULY 1973. Note - this Bible has some questionable entries since it had marriage of Olive Pitt to Andrew Smith. Olive Pitt has been disproven, see Thomas mother's Olive Foster profile
3. ↑ Miner Descent for Roger Parkes, Sr

• Title: Family Data Collection - Individual Records Author: Edmund West, comp. Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2000.

Page: Birth year: 1677; Birth city: Hopewell; Birth state: NJ.

Note: http://trees.ancestry.com/rd?f=sse&db=genepool&h=2968795&ti=0&indiv=try

Note: http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=genepool&h=2968795&ti=0&indiv=try

Text: Name: Thomas SmithBirth Date: 20 November 1677Birth Place: Hopewell, Mercer, NJDeath Date: 1712Death Place: Hopewell, Hunterdon, NJ, New Jersey

• Title: Public Member Trees Author: Ancestry.com Publication: Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2006.Original data - Family trees submitted by Ancestry members.Original data: Family trees submitted by Ancestry members. Text: http://trees.ancestry.com/pt/AMTCitationRedir.aspx?tid=3577269&pid=-1416659219
• Genealogy.com page for Descendants of Andrew Smith by Charlotte W. Jeffers
• Smith Official DNA & One Name Study at FamilyTree DNA for Thomas Smith

• Probate 1720-21 in Hopewell Twp., Mercer Co., NJ - The Ever Changing Smith Family

• Year 1696. New Jersey, Compiled Census and Census Substitutes Index, 1643-1890: Jackson, Ronald V., Accelerated Indexing Systems, comp.. New Jersey Census, 1643-1890. Compiled and digitized by Mr. Jackson and AIS from microfilmed schedules of the U.S. Federal Decennial Census, territorial/state censuses, and/or census substitutes. Page: 380.