Maria (Allen) Smith (1758 - 1820)

Born 1758 in Martha's Vineyard, West Tisbury, Dukes, Massachusetts Bay Colony

Ancestors

Wife of David Smith — married 13 Nov 1788 in Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, Dukes, Massachusetts, United States

Descendants

Died 1 Mar 1820 at about age 62 in Tisbury, Dukes, Massachusetts, United States

Problems/Questions Profile managers: Christopher Childs [send private message] and Craig Wilson [send private message]

Biography

Maria (Allen) Smith performed Patriotic Service in Massachusetts in the American Revolution.

Maria (Allen) Smith is a DAR Patriot Ancestor, A001736.

Maria Allen was born on Martha's Vineyard in 1758, a daughter of Ebenezer and Sarah (Chase) Allen. In 1788 she married, as his second wife, Vineyard master mariner David Smith; the couple had three children. Maria passed away in March of 1820.

Maria (Allen) Smith is a notable Revolutionary War heroine who is remembered for blowing-up a town flagpole and "Liberty Pole" to prevent it from being used to repair that of a British warship. In 1776, the then Maria Allen, in conspiracy with two other girls, successfully completed a covert mission to blow-up the town’s Liberty Pole to prevent a British warship captain from using it to replace his damaged mizzen mast (via a coerced purchase agreement). Because these masts (made from large pine trees and unique to those grown around New Hampshire) were in short supply, the ship’s captain thought he had found a suitable substitute for repair of his ship. Their secret mission succeeded and the secret heroines Maria Allen, Polly Daggett and Parnel Manter would not speak of their exploits for decades. ^[1]

Sources

1. ↑ Daughters of the American Revolution, DAR Genealogical Research Databases, database online, (http://www.dar.org/ : accessed 21 Oct 2023), "Record of Maria Allen", Ancestor # A001736.

• Birth, marriage, and death: Charles Edward Banks, "The History of Martha's Vineyard", Vol. 3, p. 445; see #185 [1] (birth and marriage); also #100 [2] (marriage, with birth & death dates).
• Massachusetts, U.S., Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 [3] via Ancestry.com shows the death of "Mariah" Smith at age 62, born about 1758, wife of David Smith, who died 1 Mar 1820 inn Tisbury MA. The transcript of the death mistakenly shows David Smith as her father and not her husband.
• Find A Grave Index [4]
• The Historical Marker Database [5] shows a historical marker honoring Maria Allen's Revolutionary War exploits and shows a brief history.
• MV Museum Education document [chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://mvmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Liberty-Pole-Lesson.pdf] shows and article entitled "The Liberty Pole" which outlines the entire Revolutionary War episode.