Mary Smith1
F, #101161, b. circa 1760, d. between 1810 and 1815
| Father | Maj. James Smith (Jr.)1 b. 24 Apr 1724, d. bt 2 Jan 1797 - 9 Jul 1799 |
| Mother | Mary Ann Rowan1 b. 1725, d. b 2 Jan 1797 |
| Last Edited | 19 Jun 2025 |
Mary Smith married Dempsey White.1
Mary Smith was born circa 1760.2
Mary Smith died between 1810 and 1815.2
;
Per Kruschwitz name in father's 1797 will.1
In Maj. James Smith (Jr.)'s will dated 2 January 1797 at Wilkes Co., Georgia, USA, Mary Smith was named as an heir;
James Smith in the Georgia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992
Others Listed (Name) Relationship
Mary Smith was born circa 1760.2
Mary Smith died between 1810 and 1815.2
;
Per Kruschwitz name in father's 1797 will.1
In Maj. James Smith (Jr.)'s will dated 2 January 1797 at Wilkes Co., Georgia, USA, Mary Smith was named as an heir;
James Smith in the Georgia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992
Name James Smith
Residence Date Abt 1797
Residence Place Wilkes County, Georgia
Will Date 2 Jan 1797
Probate Date 2 Jan 1797 [9 Jul 1799] [1799 July 9]
Probate Place Wilkes, Georgia, USA
Inferred Death Year 1797
Inferred Death Place Georgia, USA
Item Description Will Books, 1791-1819
Residence Date Abt 1797
Residence Place Wilkes County, Georgia
Will Date 2 Jan 1797
Probate Date 2 Jan 1797 [9 Jul 1799] [1799 July 9]
Probate Place Wilkes, Georgia, USA
Inferred Death Year 1797
Inferred Death Place Georgia, USA
Item Description Will Books, 1791-1819
Others Listed (Name) Relationship
Family | Dempsey White |
Citations
- [S5923] "Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum", p. 2, Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum, online https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~barronfamily/genealogy/Barron/jamessmithfamily.pdf. Previously published in hard copy (n.p.: self published, 2014). Hereinafter cited as Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA. - [S5923] Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA, online, p. 3.
- [S2354] Ancestry.Com Web Site, online http://search.ancestry.com/, Accessed 19 July 2025. Wills; Author: Georgia. Court of Ordinary (Wilkes County). Ancestry.com. Georgia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Georgia County, District and Probate Courts.
Info: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/8635/records/339795?tid=195414762&pid=102541873338&ssrc=pt
Image: https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8635/images/005756824_00192?pid=339795&treeid=195414762&personid=102541873338&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true. Hereinafter cited as Ancestry.Com Web Site.
Sarah Smith1
F, #101163, b. before 1765
| Father | Maj. James Smith (Jr.)1 b. 24 Apr 1724, d. bt 2 Jan 1797 - 9 Jul 1799 |
| Mother | Mary Ann Rowan1 b. 1725, d. b 2 Jan 1797 |
| Last Edited | 19 Jun 2025 |
Sarah Smith married William Thompson.1,2
Sarah Smith was born before 1765.2
;
Per Kruschwitz name in father's 1797 will.1
In Maj. James Smith (Jr.)'s will dated 2 January 1797 at Wilkes Co., Georgia, USA, Sarah Smith was named as executor;
James Smith in the Georgia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992
Others Listed (Name) Relationship
Sarah Smith was born before 1765.2
;
Per Kruschwitz name in father's 1797 will.1
In Maj. James Smith (Jr.)'s will dated 2 January 1797 at Wilkes Co., Georgia, USA, Sarah Smith was named as executor;
James Smith in the Georgia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992
Name James Smith
Residence Date Abt 1797
Residence Place Wilkes County, Georgia
Will Date 2 Jan 1797
Probate Date 2 Jan 1797 [9 Jul 1799] [1799 July 9]
Probate Place Wilkes, Georgia, USA
Inferred Death Year 1797
Inferred Death Place Georgia, USA
Item Description Will Books, 1791-1819
Residence Date Abt 1797
Residence Place Wilkes County, Georgia
Will Date 2 Jan 1797
Probate Date 2 Jan 1797 [9 Jul 1799] [1799 July 9]
Probate Place Wilkes, Georgia, USA
Inferred Death Year 1797
Inferred Death Place Georgia, USA
Item Description Will Books, 1791-1819
Others Listed (Name) Relationship
Family | William Thompson |
Citations
- [S5923] "Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum", p. 2, Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum, online https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~barronfamily/genealogy/Barron/jamessmithfamily.pdf. Previously published in hard copy (n.p.: self published, 2014). Hereinafter cited as Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA. - [S5923] Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA, online, p. 3.
- [S2354] Ancestry.Com Web Site, online http://search.ancestry.com/, Accessed 19 July 2025. Wills; Author: Georgia. Court of Ordinary (Wilkes County). Ancestry.com. Georgia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Georgia County, District and Probate Courts.
Info: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/8635/records/339795?tid=195414762&pid=102541873338&ssrc=pt
Image: https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8635/images/005756824_00192?pid=339795&treeid=195414762&personid=102541873338&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true. Hereinafter cited as Ancestry.Com Web Site.
Elizabeth Smith1
F, #101165, b. between 1780 and 1785, d. after 1837
| Father | Maj. James Smith (Jr.)1 b. 24 Apr 1724, d. bt 2 Jan 1797 - 9 Jul 1799 |
| Mother | Mary Ann Rowan1 b. 1725, d. b 2 Jan 1797 |
| Last Edited | 19 Jun 2025 |
Elizabeth Smith married David Collum.2
Elizabeth Smith was born between 1780 and 1785 at Wilkes Co., Georgia, USA;
Per Kruschwitz: "born early 1780s."2
Elizabeth Smith died after 1837 at Kemper Co., Mississippi, USA.2
;
Per Kruschwitz name in father's 1797 will.1
Elizabeth Smith was listed as a resident in Maj. James Smith (Jr.) and Mary Ann Rowan's household in the census report in 1790 at Craven Co., North Carolina, USA;
James Smith in the 1790 United States Federal Census
There are nine SMITH households on this page.
p. 431, column 3, line 16
In Maj. James Smith (Jr.)'s will dated 2 January 1797 at Wilkes Co., Georgia, USA, Elizabeth Smith was named as an heir;
James Smith in the Georgia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992
Others Listed (Name) Relationship
Elizabeth Smith was born between 1780 and 1785 at Wilkes Co., Georgia, USA;
Per Kruschwitz: "born early 1780s."2
Elizabeth Smith died after 1837 at Kemper Co., Mississippi, USA.2
;
Per Kruschwitz name in father's 1797 will.1
Elizabeth Smith was listed as a resident in Maj. James Smith (Jr.) and Mary Ann Rowan's household in the census report in 1790 at Craven Co., North Carolina, USA;
James Smith in the 1790 United States Federal Census
There are nine SMITH households on this page.
p. 431, column 3, line 16
Name James Smith
Home in 1790 (City, County, State) Craven, North Carolina
Free White Persons - Males - 16 and over 1
Free White Persons - Females 4 <==Possibly his wife, Mary and three oldest daughters: Martha 1770, Rachel 1775 and Elizabeth 1780
Number of Household Members 5.3
Home in 1790 (City, County, State) Craven, North Carolina
Free White Persons - Males - 16 and over 1
Free White Persons - Females 4 <==Possibly his wife, Mary and three oldest daughters: Martha 1770, Rachel 1775 and Elizabeth 1780
Number of Household Members 5.3
In Maj. James Smith (Jr.)'s will dated 2 January 1797 at Wilkes Co., Georgia, USA, Elizabeth Smith was named as an heir;
James Smith in the Georgia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992
Name James Smith
Residence Date Abt 1797
Residence Place Wilkes County, Georgia
Will Date 2 Jan 1797
Probate Date 2 Jan 1797 [9 Jul 1799] [1799 July 9]
Probate Place Wilkes, Georgia, USA
Inferred Death Year 1797
Inferred Death Place Georgia, USA
Item Description Will Books, 1791-1819
Residence Date Abt 1797
Residence Place Wilkes County, Georgia
Will Date 2 Jan 1797
Probate Date 2 Jan 1797 [9 Jul 1799] [1799 July 9]
Probate Place Wilkes, Georgia, USA
Inferred Death Year 1797
Inferred Death Place Georgia, USA
Item Description Will Books, 1791-1819
Others Listed (Name) Relationship
Family | David Collum |
Citations
- [S5923] "Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum", p. 2, Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum, online https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~barronfamily/genealogy/Barron/jamessmithfamily.pdf. Previously published in hard copy (n.p.: self published, 2014). Hereinafter cited as Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA. - [S5923] Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA, online, p. 3.
- [S2354] Ancestry.Com Web Site, online http://search.ancestry.com/, Accessed 19 July 2025.
The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC; First Census of the United States, 1790.; Year: 1790; Census Place: Craven, North Carolina; Series: M637; Roll: 7; Page: 431; Family History Library Film: 0568147
Info: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/5058/records/162963?tid=195414762&pid=102541873338&ssrc=pt
Image: https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/5058/images/4440913_00574?pid=162963&treeid=195414762&personid=102541873338&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true. Hereinafter cited as Ancestry.Com Web Site. - [S2354] Ancestry.Com Web Site, online http://search.ancestry.com/, Accessed 19 July 2025. Wills; Author: Georgia. Court of Ordinary (Wilkes County). Ancestry.com. Georgia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Georgia County, District and Probate Courts.
Info: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/8635/records/339795?tid=195414762&pid=102541873338&ssrc=pt
Image: https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8635/images/005756824_00192?pid=339795&treeid=195414762&personid=102541873338&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true
Rachel "Zechie" Smith1
F, #101166, b. between 1775 and 1780, d. 23 September 1848
| Father | Maj. James Smith (Jr.)2 b. 24 Apr 1724, d. bt 2 Jan 1797 - 9 Jul 1799 |
| Mother | Mary Ann Rowan2 b. 1725, d. b 2 Jan 1797 |
| Last Edited | 19 Jun 2025 |
Rachel "Zechie" Smith married William Chaffin.3
Rachel "Zechie" Smith was born between 1775 and 1780;
Per Kruschwitz: "born late 1770s."1
Rachel "Zechie" Smith died on 23 September 1848.3
;
Per Kruschwitz name in father's 1797 will.2
Rachel "Zechie" Smith was listed as a resident in Maj. James Smith (Jr.) and Mary Ann Rowan's household in the census report in 1790 at Craven Co., North Carolina, USA;
James Smith in the 1790 United States Federal Census
There are nine SMITH households on this page.
p. 431, column 3, line 16
In Maj. James Smith (Jr.)'s will dated 2 January 1797 at Wilkes Co., Georgia, USA, Rachel "Zechie" Smith was named as an heir;
James Smith in the Georgia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992
Others Listed (Name) Relationship
Rachel "Zechie" Smith was born between 1775 and 1780;
Per Kruschwitz: "born late 1770s."1
Rachel "Zechie" Smith died on 23 September 1848.3
;
Per Kruschwitz name in father's 1797 will.2
Rachel "Zechie" Smith was listed as a resident in Maj. James Smith (Jr.) and Mary Ann Rowan's household in the census report in 1790 at Craven Co., North Carolina, USA;
James Smith in the 1790 United States Federal Census
There are nine SMITH households on this page.
p. 431, column 3, line 16
Name James Smith
Home in 1790 (City, County, State) Craven, North Carolina
Free White Persons - Males - 16 and over 1
Free White Persons - Females 4 <==Possibly his wife, Mary and three oldest daughters: Martha 1770, Rachel 1775 and Elizabeth 1780
Number of Household Members 5.4
Home in 1790 (City, County, State) Craven, North Carolina
Free White Persons - Males - 16 and over 1
Free White Persons - Females 4 <==Possibly his wife, Mary and three oldest daughters: Martha 1770, Rachel 1775 and Elizabeth 1780
Number of Household Members 5.4
In Maj. James Smith (Jr.)'s will dated 2 January 1797 at Wilkes Co., Georgia, USA, Rachel "Zechie" Smith was named as an heir;
James Smith in the Georgia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992
Name James Smith
Residence Date Abt 1797
Residence Place Wilkes County, Georgia
Will Date 2 Jan 1797
Probate Date 2 Jan 1797 [9 Jul 1799] [1799 July 9]
Probate Place Wilkes, Georgia, USA
Inferred Death Year 1797
Inferred Death Place Georgia, USA
Item Description Will Books, 1791-1819
Residence Date Abt 1797
Residence Place Wilkes County, Georgia
Will Date 2 Jan 1797
Probate Date 2 Jan 1797 [9 Jul 1799] [1799 July 9]
Probate Place Wilkes, Georgia, USA
Inferred Death Year 1797
Inferred Death Place Georgia, USA
Item Description Will Books, 1791-1819
Others Listed (Name) Relationship
Family | William Chaffin |
Citations
- [S5923] "Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum", pp. 2-3, Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum, online https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~barronfamily/genealogy/Barron/jamessmithfamily.pdf. Previously published in hard copy (n.p.: self published, 2014). Hereinafter cited as Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA. - [S5923] Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA, online, p. 2.
- [S5923] Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA, online, p. 3.
- [S2354] Ancestry.Com Web Site, online http://search.ancestry.com/, Accessed 19 July 2025.
The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC; First Census of the United States, 1790.; Year: 1790; Census Place: Craven, North Carolina; Series: M637; Roll: 7; Page: 431; Family History Library Film: 0568147
Info: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/5058/records/162963?tid=195414762&pid=102541873338&ssrc=pt
Image: https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/5058/images/4440913_00574?pid=162963&treeid=195414762&personid=102541873338&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true. Hereinafter cited as Ancestry.Com Web Site. - [S2354] Ancestry.Com Web Site, online http://search.ancestry.com/, Accessed 19 July 2025. Wills; Author: Georgia. Court of Ordinary (Wilkes County). Ancestry.com. Georgia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1742-1992 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. Original data: Georgia County, District and Probate Courts.
Info: https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/8635/records/339795?tid=195414762&pid=102541873338&ssrc=pt
Image: https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8635/images/005756824_00192?pid=339795&treeid=195414762&personid=102541873338&usePUB=true&usePUBJs=true
Susannah Thompson1
F, #101169, b. 1766, d. 1831
| Father | Benjamin Thompson1,2 b. 1735, d. 1797 |
| Last Edited | 19 Jul 2025 |
Susannah Thompson was born in 1766 at Georgia, USA.2 She married Jacob Smith, son of Maj. James Smith (Jr.) and Mary Ann Rowan, in 1780
;
Her 1st of 2 husbands.1,3 Susannah Thompson married Abel McIntosh in 1793
;
Her 2nd of 2 husbands.2
Susannah Thompson was buried in 1831 at Burial details unknown ;
From Find a Grave:
Birth 1766, Georgia, USA
Death 1831 (aged 64–65), Greene County, Tennessee, USA
Burial Burial Details Unknown
Daughter of Benjamin Thompson Jr. and Anne Spain
She married 1st: Jacob Smith Sr. (1764-1790). They were the parents of:
In 1793 Susannah married 2nd: Abel McIntosh. They were the parents of:
Gravesite Details: Died in Greene Co., Tennessee. Burial location unknown.
Family Members
Parents
Benjamin Thompson Jr 1735–1797
Spouse
Jacob Smith Sr 1764–1790 (m. 1780)
Siblings
Rachel Thompson Catching 1750–1830
Jesse Thompson 1754–1824
Rev Benjamin Thompson III 1758–1840
Rebecca Thompson Smith 1772–1835
Jesse Thompson 1778–1833
Children
Jacob Smith II 1783–1862
John H. Smith Sr 1788–1882
Created by: Steven L. Akins
Added: Dec 29, 2024
Find a Grave Memorial ID: 277733232.2
Susannah Thompson died in 1831 at Greene Co., Tennessee, USA.2
;
Her 1st of 2 husbands.1,3 Susannah Thompson married Abel McIntosh in 1793
;
Her 2nd of 2 husbands.2
Susannah Thompson was buried in 1831 at Burial details unknown ;
From Find a Grave:
Birth 1766, Georgia, USA
Death 1831 (aged 64–65), Greene County, Tennessee, USA
Burial Burial Details Unknown
Daughter of Benjamin Thompson Jr. and Anne Spain
She married 1st: Jacob Smith Sr. (1764-1790). They were the parents of:
Jacob Smith (1783-1862), m. Margaret Childers
Salatha Smith (1784-1846), m. Holland Watts
James Smith (1786-1850), m. Frances Brooks
John H. Smith (1788-1882), m. Lucy Dunn
Salatha Smith (1784-1846), m. Holland Watts
James Smith (1786-1850), m. Frances Brooks
John H. Smith (1788-1882), m. Lucy Dunn
In 1793 Susannah married 2nd: Abel McIntosh. They were the parents of:
Jesse McIntosh
Susannah McIntosh
Susannah McIntosh
Gravesite Details: Died in Greene Co., Tennessee. Burial location unknown.
Family Members
Parents
Benjamin Thompson Jr 1735–1797
Spouse
Jacob Smith Sr 1764–1790 (m. 1780)
Siblings
Rachel Thompson Catching 1750–1830
Jesse Thompson 1754–1824
Rev Benjamin Thompson III 1758–1840
Rebecca Thompson Smith 1772–1835
Jesse Thompson 1778–1833
Children
Jacob Smith II 1783–1862
John H. Smith Sr 1788–1882
Created by: Steven L. Akins
Added: Dec 29, 2024
Find a Grave Memorial ID: 277733232.2
Susannah Thompson died in 1831 at Greene Co., Tennessee, USA.2
Family 1 | Jacob Smith b. 1764, d. Dec 1790 |
| Children |
|
Family 2 | Abel McIntosh |
Citations
- [S5923] "Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum", p. 3, Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum, online https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~barronfamily/genealogy/Barron/jamessmithfamily.pdf. Previously published in hard copy (n.p.: self published, 2014). Hereinafter cited as Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA. - [S2374] Find a Grave, online http://www.findagrave.com/, Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/277733232/susannah-smith_mcintosh: accessed July 19, 2025), memorial page for Susannah Thompson Smith McIntosh (1766–1831), Find a Grave Memorial ID 277733232; Burial Details Unknown; Maintained by Steven L. Akins (contributor 46996187).. Hereinafter cited as Find a Grave.
- [S2374] Find a Grave, online http://www.findagrave.com/, Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/218368931/jacob-smith: accessed July 19, 2025), memorial page for Jacob Smith Sr. (1764–Dec 1790), Find a Grave Memorial ID 218368931; Burial Details Unknown; Maintained by Steven L. Akins (contributor 46996187).
Benjamin Thompson1
M, #101170, b. 1735, d. 1797
| Last Edited | 19 Jul 2025 |
Benjamin Thompson was born in 1735.2
Benjamin Thompson was buried in 1797 at Burial details unknown ;
From Find a Grave:
Birth 1735
Death 1797 (aged 61–62), Georgia, USA
Burial Burial Details Unknown
Son of Benjamin Thompson who died 1771 in Bute County, North Carolina. Some of his great-grandchildren through son Benjamin Jr's son Jesse later claimed that Benjamin Thompson and some children came from Ireland about 1743, although other descendants said he came from Amelia County, Virginia, where he or another Benjamin Thompson was on record. (Sources: "a book written by George White about 1850," just 110 years after the immigration; also on the internet under "History of Thompson Bridge Road," page #3, last paragraph, "Thompson History of South Georgia river settlers, and kinfolk", Ga Historical Society.)
He married Anne Spain, the daughter of Thomas Spain and Martha Haskins. Benjamin and Anne Spain Thompson emigrated to Georgia in 1773 with at least 15 children.
Benjamin Thompson's will was proven in Hancock County, Georgia, 10 March 1797.
Some Georgia County Records, by The Rev. Silas Emmett Lucas Jr., Vol 1, p.116 (Southern Historical Press, 1977):
Family Members
Parents
Benjamin Thompson 1700–1771
Siblings
Gideon Thompson 1725–1796
Susannah Thompson Yarbrough 1740–1800
Drury Thompson 1752–1828
Children
Rachel Thompson Catching 1750–1830
Jesse Thompson 1754–1824
Rev Benjamin Thompson III 1758–1840
Susannah Thompson Smith McIntosh 1766–1831
Rebecca Thompson Smith 1772–1835
Jesse Thompson 1778–1833
Created by: Ray Isbell
Added: Jun 24, 2014
Find a Grave Memorial ID: 131820225.2
Benjamin Thompson died in 1797 at Georgia, USA.2
Benjamin Thompson was buried in 1797 at Burial details unknown ;
From Find a Grave:
Birth 1735
Death 1797 (aged 61–62), Georgia, USA
Burial Burial Details Unknown
Son of Benjamin Thompson who died 1771 in Bute County, North Carolina. Some of his great-grandchildren through son Benjamin Jr's son Jesse later claimed that Benjamin Thompson and some children came from Ireland about 1743, although other descendants said he came from Amelia County, Virginia, where he or another Benjamin Thompson was on record. (Sources: "a book written by George White about 1850," just 110 years after the immigration; also on the internet under "History of Thompson Bridge Road," page #3, last paragraph, "Thompson History of South Georgia river settlers, and kinfolk", Ga Historical Society.)
He married Anne Spain, the daughter of Thomas Spain and Martha Haskins. Benjamin and Anne Spain Thompson emigrated to Georgia in 1773 with at least 15 children.
Benjamin Thompson's will was proven in Hancock County, Georgia, 10 March 1797.
Some Georgia County Records, by The Rev. Silas Emmett Lucas Jr., Vol 1, p.116 (Southern Historical Press, 1977):
[Hancock Co. Wills & Estate Records; 1794-1804, Vol. A-AAAA] Pages 177-179: Will of Benjamin THOMPSON, Senr. of Hancock Co. . . . very sick and weak in body...my dearly beloved wife Anne . . . to my son Jesse son William . . . to my daughter Rachel CUTCHING (CATCHING?) . . . sons Benjamin THOMPSON, John THOMPSON, Isham THOMPSON, Gideon THOMPSON, Joseph THOMPSON and heirs of Zachariah THOMPSON one dollar to each of them . . . daughters Rebecca JONES, Susannah MCINTOSH & Nancy CAWLY one dollar to each . . . to grandsons Benjamin WOOD, Joseph WOOD one hundred dollars when they come of age...wife Anne, Jesse son, and friend Henry GRAYBILL, Exrs . . . May 12, 1796 . . . Benja. THOMPSON (Seal). Wit: Hen. GRAYBILL, Solomon JORDAN, John GOODE. Proven by Solomon JORDAN and John GOODE. March 10, 1797.
Deed Book A-B, Pgs 258 - 259 12 July (1793?) Hancock County, Georgia. Records: Jesse THOMPSON and wife ANN, for 40 lbs Sterling, deed to John LANGSTON RN 14505, Solomon LANGSTON RN 407 AND Moses LANGSTON RB 59771, 135 acres of land on Shoulderbone Creek, Adj. McGEE, part of a grant to said THOMPSON /s/ Jesse THOMPSON and Ann THOMPSON Witnesses: John COLBERT, Samuel TOWNSON.
(ref., Thompson Magazine, p. 77, Vol 5, July 1966)
Source Date 1772
Where The Record Is Found (Citation): North Carolina land grants file 471, grant 91, block 22, page 23. as noted also in Holcomb, B. H. (1983) North Carolina Land Grants in South Carolina, page 132.
Describe The Record (Notes):
Benjamin Thompson granted 200a on both side of Fareforest(?) on Grenston Branch and Holston's Branch and land of John Kirk. Surv: Wm Weck and William Thompson. Plat surveyed by Benj. Thompson.
Reason This Source Is Attached:
Official records show names, place, and association. Benj. Thompson (died in GA in 1796) is known to be a surveyor.
Where The Record Is Found (Citation): Davis, Robert Scott (1979) The Wilkes County Papers 1773-1833. Southern Historical Press, Easley SC. p. 60
Describe The Record (Notes): State of Georgia to Robert Carr for ranging as Capt of the Militia of Wilkes Co. by order of Col. John Dooley. Benjamin Thompson Sr. Benjamin Thompson From 15 AUG to 15 SEP 1778
Where The Record Is Found (Citation): Davidson, Grace Gillam (1932) Early Records of Wilkes Co. Vol. I. pp. 269-270
Describe The Record (Notes): Commissioners of Confiscated Estates to John Davidson of Savannah, merchant, 3500 acres on Rocky Creek conveyed by Benjamin Thompson to Wm Manson. 10 JUN 1784.
Source Date 30 December 1785
Where The Record Is Found (Citation): Wilkes County Deed Book CC, page 162
Describe The Record (Notes): Deed from Benjamin Thompson and wife Anne to Simon Bechler, 200 acres on Big and Little Ogeechee Rivers, 20 DEC 1785. Test: James Wood and John Thompson.
Source Date 1786
Where The Record Is Found (Citation): Crumpton, Daniel Nathan (2014) Wilkes County, Georgia, Land Records. p. 248.
Describe The Record (Notes): Benjamin Thompson and Wife Anne of Greene Co. to Edward Butler of Wilkes Co. 375 acres on Beaverdam Creek original grant to John Jones 1785, it being the tract where sd. Butler lives.
Source Date 1790
Where The Record Is Found (Citation) Wilkes Co. Ga. Deed Book GG, p. 223 as seen in Davidson, G. G. (1932) Early Records of Georgia, Vol. II.
Describe The Record (Notes): John Cobbs of Richmond Co. to Benj. Porter of Wilkes Co. 3500 acres on both sides of Rocky Creek, confiscated land of Wm Mannon, formerly the property of Benj. Thompson and sold by him to Mannon. 21 AUG 1790.
Source Date 1791
Where The Record Is Found (Citation): Smith, Elizabeth Wiley (1974) The History of Hancock County, Georgia Vol. II - Ancestors, Families, and Genealogies. Wilkes Publishing Company, Wasington, Georgia.
Describe The Record (Notes): Benjamin Thompson was the first pastor of (OCT 1791) of Bethlehem Baptist Church, which was established by Jeptha Vining and John Henderson. Benjamin was also involved in organizing the Island Creek and the Beulah Baptist churches. Brother Thompson's son, also Benjamin, was active in the Baptist Church in Hancock. County.
(ref., Thompson Magazine, p. 77, Vol 5, July 1966)
Source Date 1772
Where The Record Is Found (Citation): North Carolina land grants file 471, grant 91, block 22, page 23. as noted also in Holcomb, B. H. (1983) North Carolina Land Grants in South Carolina, page 132.
Describe The Record (Notes):
Benjamin Thompson granted 200a on both side of Fareforest(?) on Grenston Branch and Holston's Branch and land of John Kirk. Surv: Wm Weck and William Thompson. Plat surveyed by Benj. Thompson.
Reason This Source Is Attached:
Official records show names, place, and association. Benj. Thompson (died in GA in 1796) is known to be a surveyor.
Where The Record Is Found (Citation): Davis, Robert Scott (1979) The Wilkes County Papers 1773-1833. Southern Historical Press, Easley SC. p. 60
Describe The Record (Notes): State of Georgia to Robert Carr for ranging as Capt of the Militia of Wilkes Co. by order of Col. John Dooley. Benjamin Thompson Sr. Benjamin Thompson From 15 AUG to 15 SEP 1778
Where The Record Is Found (Citation): Davidson, Grace Gillam (1932) Early Records of Wilkes Co. Vol. I. pp. 269-270
Describe The Record (Notes): Commissioners of Confiscated Estates to John Davidson of Savannah, merchant, 3500 acres on Rocky Creek conveyed by Benjamin Thompson to Wm Manson. 10 JUN 1784.
Source Date 30 December 1785
Where The Record Is Found (Citation): Wilkes County Deed Book CC, page 162
Describe The Record (Notes): Deed from Benjamin Thompson and wife Anne to Simon Bechler, 200 acres on Big and Little Ogeechee Rivers, 20 DEC 1785. Test: James Wood and John Thompson.
Source Date 1786
Where The Record Is Found (Citation): Crumpton, Daniel Nathan (2014) Wilkes County, Georgia, Land Records. p. 248.
Describe The Record (Notes): Benjamin Thompson and Wife Anne of Greene Co. to Edward Butler of Wilkes Co. 375 acres on Beaverdam Creek original grant to John Jones 1785, it being the tract where sd. Butler lives.
Source Date 1790
Where The Record Is Found (Citation) Wilkes Co. Ga. Deed Book GG, p. 223 as seen in Davidson, G. G. (1932) Early Records of Georgia, Vol. II.
Describe The Record (Notes): John Cobbs of Richmond Co. to Benj. Porter of Wilkes Co. 3500 acres on both sides of Rocky Creek, confiscated land of Wm Mannon, formerly the property of Benj. Thompson and sold by him to Mannon. 21 AUG 1790.
Source Date 1791
Where The Record Is Found (Citation): Smith, Elizabeth Wiley (1974) The History of Hancock County, Georgia Vol. II - Ancestors, Families, and Genealogies. Wilkes Publishing Company, Wasington, Georgia.
Describe The Record (Notes): Benjamin Thompson was the first pastor of (OCT 1791) of Bethlehem Baptist Church, which was established by Jeptha Vining and John Henderson. Benjamin was also involved in organizing the Island Creek and the Beulah Baptist churches. Brother Thompson's son, also Benjamin, was active in the Baptist Church in Hancock. County.
Family Members
Parents
Benjamin Thompson 1700–1771
Siblings
Gideon Thompson 1725–1796
Susannah Thompson Yarbrough 1740–1800
Drury Thompson 1752–1828
Children
Rachel Thompson Catching 1750–1830
Jesse Thompson 1754–1824
Rev Benjamin Thompson III 1758–1840
Susannah Thompson Smith McIntosh 1766–1831
Rebecca Thompson Smith 1772–1835
Jesse Thompson 1778–1833
Created by: Ray Isbell
Added: Jun 24, 2014
Find a Grave Memorial ID: 131820225.2
Benjamin Thompson died in 1797 at Georgia, USA.2
Family | |
| Child |
|
Citations
- [S5923] "Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum", p. 3, Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum, online https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~barronfamily/genealogy/Barron/jamessmithfamily.pdf. Previously published in hard copy (n.p.: self published, 2014). Hereinafter cited as Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA. - [S2374] Find a Grave, online http://www.findagrave.com/, Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/131820225/benjamin-thompson: accessed July 19, 2025), memorial page for Benjamin Thompson Jr. (1735–1797), Find a Grave Memorial ID 131820225; Burial Details Unknown; Maintained by Ray Isbell (contributor 47188697).. Hereinafter cited as Find a Grave.
- [S2374] Find a Grave, online http://www.findagrave.com/, Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/277733232/susannah-smith_mcintosh: accessed July 19, 2025), memorial page for Susannah Thompson Smith McIntosh (1766–1831), Find a Grave Memorial ID 277733232; Burial Details Unknown; Maintained by Steven L. Akins (contributor 46996187).
Elizabeth Smith1
F, #101181, b. circa 1785
| Father | Nathan Smith1 b. bt 9 Mar 1750 - 1751, d. 30 Apr 1816 |
| Mother | Sarah "Salley" Foster1 b. 13 Dec 1765 |
| Last Edited | 19 Jun 2025 |
Family | James Dorough |
Citations
- [S5923] "Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum", p. 15, Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum, online https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~barronfamily/genealogy/Barron/jamessmithfamily.pdf. Previously published in hard copy (n.p.: self published, 2014). Hereinafter cited as Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA.
Sally Smith1
F, #101183, b. 1784, d. 1815
| Father | Nathan Smith1 b. bt 9 Mar 1750 - 1751, d. 30 Apr 1816 |
| Mother | Sarah "Salley" Foster1 b. 13 Dec 1765 |
| Last Edited | 19 Jun 2025 |
Sally Smith was born in 1784.1 She married Charles Phillips Jr. circa 1804.1
Sally Smith died in 1815 at Wilkes Co., Georgia, USA.1
Sally Smith died in 1815 at Wilkes Co., Georgia, USA.1
Family | Charles Phillips Jr. |
Citations
- [S5923] "Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum", p. 15, Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum, online https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~barronfamily/genealogy/Barron/jamessmithfamily.pdf. Previously published in hard copy (n.p.: self published, 2014). Hereinafter cited as Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA.
Phoebe/Phebe Smith1
F, #101185, b. 1800
| Father | Nathan Smith1 b. bt 9 Mar 1750 - 1751, d. 30 Apr 1816 |
| Mother | Sarah "Salley" Foster1 b. 13 Dec 1765 |
| Last Edited | 19 Jun 2025 |
Family | Robert Moss |
Citations
- [S5923] "Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum", p. 15, Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum, online https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~barronfamily/genealogy/Barron/jamessmithfamily.pdf. Previously published in hard copy (n.p.: self published, 2014). Hereinafter cited as Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA.
Nathan Foster Smith1
M, #101187, b. 1800, d. December 1866
| Father | Nathan Smith1 b. bt 9 Mar 1750 - 1751, d. 30 Apr 1816 |
| Mother | Sarah "Salley" Foster1 b. 13 Dec 1765 |
| Last Edited | 19 Jun 2025 |
Nathan Foster Smith was born in 1800.1 He married Catherine Evans in 1827 at Newton Co., Georgia, USA.1
Nathan Foster Smith died in December 1866 at Pulaski Co., Arkansas, USA.1
Nathan Foster Smith died in December 1866 at Pulaski Co., Arkansas, USA.1
Family | Catherine Evans |
Citations
- [S5923] "Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum", p. 15, Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum, online https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~barronfamily/genealogy/Barron/jamessmithfamily.pdf. Previously published in hard copy (n.p.: self published, 2014). Hereinafter cited as Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA.
William B. Smith1
M, #101189, b. 1802
| Father | Nathan Smith1 b. bt 9 Mar 1750 - 1751, d. 30 Apr 1816 |
| Mother | Sarah "Salley" Foster1 b. 13 Dec 1765 |
| Last Edited | 19 Jun 2025 |
William B. Smith married Elizabeth (?)
;
Per Kruschwitz, his 1st of 2 wives.1 William B. Smith married Mary Snider
;
Per Kruschwitz, his 2nd of 2 wives.1 William B. Smith was born in 1802.1
;
Per Kruschwitz, his 1st of 2 wives.1 William B. Smith married Mary Snider
;
Per Kruschwitz, his 2nd of 2 wives.1 William B. Smith was born in 1802.1
Family 1 | Mary Snider |
Family 2 | Elizabeth (?) |
Citations
- [S5923] "Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum", p. 15, Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Georgia: Wilkes County: A Smith Family Odyssey, Chapter 5
http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/wilkes/bios/smith5.txt
CHAPTER FIVE
NATHAN SMITH AND HIS TIMES
Nathan Smith is better known to history than many of Mittie Olivia Smith's forbears. His record of Revolutionary War experience provides some of the details of his life; the land and tax records of Wilkes County include many references; he left a Will that tells us about his family and something about his lifestyle; and the records of the administration of his Will provide still more information. Considering the fact that Nathan was a farmer without pretensions to public life or office, it is possible to piece together a fair indication of who he was and how he lived.
Nathan Smith was born in 1750/51 according to his Revolutionary War record. As noted in Chapter One, he is thought to have emigrated to Georgia with his father, James Smith, shortly before the Revolutionary War. After the war he received several warrants signed by General Elijah Clarke entitling him to land being parceled out to those who had fought for the Patriot cause. He also received a headright grant in the period 1783-1785.
The available record of Nathan Smith's ownership of land begins in 1786, when he is listed in the Wilkes County tax records as owning 200 acres of second quality oak and hickory land on Beaverdam Creek. However, it appears that Nathan did not actually acquire title to the land until September 1789, when it was conveyed to him by his wife's parents, William and Phoebe Foster, for £50 (Deed Book GG 215). The land in question, on which the Fosters lived, had been granted to Foster by the Governor in 1788. The records show that William Foster was also granted 550 acres of land on Beaverdam Creek in 1784 and additional land in 1785, which made him one of the larger landowners in the county. Foster's lands adjoined Nathan's and also land owned by his nephew, William Shepherd Foster.
In 1798 Nathan acquired another 100 acres on Beaverdam Creek from William Shepherd Foster and his wife Susannah, giving him a total of 300 acres.
The land had also been owned originally by Nathan's father-in-law, William Foster, and probably represented the division of a parcel in which Nathan already had an interest. In 1800 his land holdings were temporarily increased to 500 acres, possibly reflecting the disposition of land from his father James' estate. In any event, in 1801 and succeeding years Nathan is again listed as the owner of 300 acres.
In 1805 Nathan and his wife Sarah conveyed 150 acres to their son Elbert "in consideration for the parental love and affection toward the said Elbert". It is further identified as the land on which Elbert Smith lives (Deed Book VV 358). This indicates that Elbert had built his house on his parents' land and suggests that Nathan, who was then fifty five years old, had begun the process of turning over the farm to his oldest son.
Because the description of each parcel of land listed in the tax records refers to the adjoining land owners, it is possible to identify Nathan Smith's neighbors with reasonable accuracy. And since there were frequent intermarriages among neighbors, and wills and other legal documents often bore the names of neighbors as witnesses, appraisers and the like, the people who were important in Nathan Smith's life are readily identifiable.
Nathan's closest friends were old neighbors from North Carolina days, Nathaniel Rice and his son Samuel. Both of the Rices were witnesses to the Will of Nathan's father, James Smith (I Davidson 66), and Samuel was a witness to Nathan's Will in 1814 and to the codicil in 1816 (I Davidson 99). When Nathaniel Rice died in 1799, Nathan Smith was named as one of the appraisers of the estate (I Davidson 138, 141; II Davidson 281). Most importantly, after the deaths of Nathan and Sarah Smith, Samuel Rice was appointed guardian of their minor children, William and James B. Smith, (II Davidson 188, 189, 293). In addition to their friendship, the Smith and Rice families were related through marriage; Samuel Rice and Nathan Smith's son Elbert married sisters, Fanny and Elizabeth Lybas.
The tax records indicate that the Smith and Rice farms also adjoined each other on Beaverdam Creek. The close connections are further illustrated by the fact that another adjoining landowner, Benjamin Powell, was married to a third Lybas sister, Mary. And Nathan and Sarah Smith's daughter Sally married the son of still another adjoining landowner, Charles Phillips, Sr. In short, the cluster of farms on Beaverdam Creek four miles southwest of the town of Washington made up a self-contained community of families that intermarried, ministered to each other's needs and provided support when that was needed.
II Wilkes County changed greatly during the lives of Nathan and Sarah Smith. A vast, forested wilderness when they arrived in the 1770's, it had become a settled, relatively stable farming community by the end of the second decade of the 1800's. The town of Washington was authorized by the Legislature and lots were laid out in 1783. That same year Colonel Micajah Williamson, a Revolutionary War hero, opened a tavern consisting of two log cabins with a broad open space between the two. A large picture of General Washington hung in front of the tavern, and one room housed the first court of Wilkes County. By 1796 the town consisted of 34 houses The acts establishing the town of Washington provided for the reservation of lots to be used for a free Academy and a set-aside of 1,000 acres in the county to provide funds to finance the schoolhouse. A brick schoolhouse was finally built in 1796, but in the meantime classes were held in private homes by itinerant schoolmasters. However, the effort to provide free public education did not succeed, and what little education was offered in Wilkes County in the early part of the nineteenth century was provided by private schools. One such school, the Washington Academy, was established in 1786, and by 1796 the school had enrolled about 70 students. A group of Methodists established another private school, Succoth Academy, about three miles from Washington in 1790. However, few farm children were able to attend any school, and most grew up with no formal education.
By 1790 stagecoaches operated from Savannah to northern destinations by way of Augusta and Washington. After arriving in Augusta the coach departed for Washington at 6:00 A.M. every other Saturday and arrived the following day at 11 A.M. However, Georgia roads, including those used by the stagecoach, were generally in miserable condition. A road law enacted in 1792 gave the county courts the right and duty to lay out new roads and appoint road overseers who were obligated to keep the roads in good repair. The legislation required that all roads should "at all times be kept well cleared from logs, trees, bushes and other obstructions" for a width of thirty feet and all roots should be grubbed up at least sixteen feet across. In order to maintain the roads, all male laboring persons between the ages of sixteen and fifty were required to work not more than twelve days a year. The following year (1793) the act was amended to include slaves in the work detail. It also provided that every white worker must "carry with him one good and sufficient gun or pair of pistols", apparently as a precaution against Indian attacks.
Despite the good intentions reflected in these road acts, road conditions continued to be deplorable well into the nineteenth century. A few people traveled in buggies or sulkies, but most traveled on horseback and shipped their produce by water in flatboats where possible. People emigrating to Georgia usually came in wagons and carts, with some members of the party riding horseback. Every town of much size had its "Waggon yard", and a French traveler in 1802 saw large wagons drawn by four or six horses going from upper Georgia to Charleston, carrying such articles as cotton, tobacco, smoked hams, and deer and bear skins.
By the turn of the century Wilkes County merchants offered a selection of goods brought from Augusta, Charleston or, in a few cases, New York. Articles bought in New York were usually shipped to Savannah by sailing vessels and then barged up the river to Augusta, where they were transferred to wagon trains for the final haul. Merchants xtended credit for as long as one year but sold at about double the cost of the goods. Most stores sold liquor as well as groceries, dress goods and the like.
During the War of 1812 all coastal shipping was cut off by the British Navy, and as a result land transportation reached its height. Cotton was hauled by wagon as far north as Baltimore in exchange for merchandise. However, the roads were so poor and land transportation so slow that by 1813 thirty thousand bales of cotton had piled up in Augusta and equal amounts in Savannah and Charleston. The morass created by dozens of heavy wagons mounted on thin iron-rimmed wheels, all following narrow ungraded roads, can scarcely be imagined.
While some substantial houses were going up in Wilkes County at the beginning of the nineteenth century, most dwellings were still log cabins, although now sometimes covered with clapboards on the outside and plastered inside. Many of the original cabins had been enlarged to accommodate the large families common to that period, with kitchens, spring houses, smokehouses and "necessary houses" scattered about in the vicinity of the main house.
The changeover from tobacco to the cultivation of cotton, referred to in the preceding chapter, continued on into the new century. Vast forests were cut down to make way for cotton fields, and the need for labor to plant, cultivate and harvest the cotton led to an increased demand for slaves. Immediately after the Revolutionary War there was a shortage of slaves in Georgia, as many had run away or departed with the British during the war. However, slaves were soon imported from Africa in large numbers or were brought by their masters from Virginia and the Carolinas. While the percentage of blacks was lower in Wilkes County than in the rice-growing coastal areas of Georgia, the proportion of black to white inhabitants in Wilkes continued to grow after 1820, for reasons to be discussed in the next chapter.
While cotton was king in Georgia, it would be a mistake to assume that other crops and agricultural products were abandoned. Corn continued to be a major crop, both for home consumption and for sale, although it never rivaled cotton as a cash crop. And every farmer raised hogs, a few cattle and horses and much poultry.
Nathan Smith's Will identifies him as one of the class of farmers who made up the great majority of Wilkes County residents. Nathan owned a number of hogs, several horses and ten head of cattle, which was consistent with the holdings of neighboring farmers. While he owned six slaves, they included several women and one child. It is clear, therefore, that Nathan was not one of the larger planters but worked in the fields alongside his sons and the slaves. His landholdings of about 300 acres, while they indicate that he was a very substantial farmer, would not have defined him as a member of the planter class, who often owned from five hundred to one thousand acres or more.
Jack Smith of Wilkes County, GA, and Allied Families of Barron, Foster, White, thompson, Chaffin, and Collum, online https://freepages.rootsweb.com/~barronfamily/genealogy/Barron/jamessmithfamily.pdf. Previously published in hard copy (n.p.: self published, 2014). Hereinafter cited as Kruschwitz [2014] James Smith of Wilkes Co GA.