Jesse Smith His Ancestors and Descendants

139 Pages·2007·0.54 MB·English

Jesse Smith His Ancestors and Descendants

Author: L. Bertrand Smith

This book contains the history and genealogy of
the Smith family of Massachusetts.

Bibliographic Information:
Smith, L. Bertrand. Jesse Smith His Ancestors and
Descendants.

Genealogical Company. New York. 1909.
Jesse Smith His Ancestors and Descendants

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DEDICATED
TO MY CHILDREN
LADYE KATHARINE SMITH
AND
HOWARD MALCOM SMITH

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TO A MEMBER OF THE SMITH FAMILY

(With Apologies to F. C. K.)

Say,
Now,
Don't you really think
You can in some way link
The classical name of Smith
With that of myth-
Ology?
We'll make no apology
If you'll only try
Before you die
To send the fair name of
Smith
Smyth
Smythe or
Smithers
Ringing down the corridors of time.
We don't care
How or where
You do it
What is wanted
Sadly
And badly
Is to have our name planted
Surely and securely
In the Hall of Fame.

And why not? One of us founded the first English settlement
in America, in 1607, and there are six hundred thousand of
us here today, without counting our German cousins, the
Schmitts, Schmits, Schmiths, Schmitzes, Schmids, Schmidths,
Smits and Schmidts; our French cousins, the Le Fevers; the
Fabronis from Italy, the Gonsulus from Spain, the
Smithtowskies from Russia, nor the Gavans or Gowans from
Ireland and Scotland.

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PREFACE

The primary object of this book is to show the line of
descent of the author's children from their first ancestor
in the male line in this country, as follows:

Ralph1 Smith, of Hingham, Mass.
Thomas2 Smith, of Eastham, Mass.
Jesse3 Smith, Sr., of Dutchess Co., N. Y.
Jesse4 Smith, Jr., of Dutchess Co., N. Y.
James Phillips5 Smith, of Dutchess Co., N. Y.
Ambrose6 Smith, of Fayetteville, N. Y.
Platt Hiram7 Smith, of Fayetteville, N. Y.
L Bertrand8 Smith, of Brooklyn, N. Y.
Ladye Katharine9 Smith.
Howard Malcom9 Smith.

There have been added the names and records of all
ancestors, other than the above, which the author has been
able to obtain, and also the names and records of nearly all
descendants of Jesse Smith, Jr., in both male and female
lines. The arrangement may seem confusing at first glance,
but the author believes that with a little examination it
will be found quite simple. Each family has been given a
number which will be found in its proper place in
consecutive order.

The material gathered by the author relating to the
descendants of Ralph Smith will appear in a later edition,
after a more exhaustive search has been made. Only the
families of the second generation from Ralph are recorded in
this edition.

For several years after the writer's first attempt to trace
his ancestors of the name of Smith he was unable to make any
progress, beyond the "Dutchess County families," owing to a
vague tradition, the most that parents, grandparents, aunts
and uncles could give, which directed him to Long Island as
the proper locality for research. He devoted many hours in
the libraries of

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New York and vicinity, looking for the connecting link
between his ancestors in Dutchess County and the great
colony of Smiths at Smithtown, Long Island, knowing well
that if he succeeded in tracing the line to that locality he
would then have to unravel a tangle which has defeated many
careful genealogists. All work done on the Long Island
families was declared useless and all of the material
gathered was thrown away, upon finding in an old note book,
made by Anna Smith, daughter of Captain Ephraim Smith, and
now in possession of Miss Geneva Armstrong, the following
memorandum: "James Phillips came from Cape Cod with Jesse
Smith. He had one son and he married Sylla Smith, the
daughter of Jesse Smith."

This clue led to a visit to Cape Cod and an inspection of
the old records at Orleans, Mass., where the record of the
births of the children of Jesse Smith was found and among
them the "Sylla" (Priscilla) mentioned above.

In Volume IV of the "Mayflower Descendant," at page 141, was
found the record of births of the children of Thomas Smith,
the father of Jesse.

This book contains copies of wills, documents, etc., which
prove each generation of the line of descent, shown above,
down to the writer's grandfather, Ambrose Smith.

The writer will appreciate any corrections or additions
which may be sent to him.

L BERTRAND SMITH.
99 MeDonough St.,
Brooklyn, N. Y.

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Jesse Smith His Ancestors and Descendants Page 11

Smyth Coat of Arms
Frontispiece

Title-Page, designed by Georgia Cooper
Washburn 3

Dedication 5

To a Member of the Smith Family 7

Preface 9

Chapter I The Conditions Under Which Our
First Ancestor Lived in America 13

Chapter II The Ancestors and Descendants of
Jesse Smith

First Generation 23

Second Generation 24

Third Generation 30

Fourth Generation 34

Fifth Generation 36

Sixth Generation 39

Seventh Generation 44

Eighth Generation 59

Ninth Generation 79

Chapter III The Ancestors of the Children of
the Compiler

Ancestors of Platt Hiram Smith 89

Ancestors of Katharine Snell 115

Ancestors of Thomas Jefferson Hall 123

Ancestors of Francesca Cleveland 137

Ancestors of Dwight Wellington Rector 149

Ancestors of Almira Beebe 153

Crouse and Beebe Records 163
Index 171

Index of Persons 173

Index of Places 185

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Jesse Smith His Ancestors and Descendants Page 14

CHAPTER I

THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH OUR

FIRST ANCESTOR LIVED IN AMERICA

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CHAPTER I

THE CONDITIONS UNDER WHICH OUR FIRST ANCESTOR

LIVED IN AMERICA

Ralph Smith came from Hingham, Norfolk County, England, in
1633, and was one of the first settlers of Hingham, Plymouth
County, Massachusetts. Of this there can be no doubt. Mr.
Daniel Cushing in his record states that "Ralph came from
Old Hingham, 1633, and lived in this town." Mr. Cushing
placed the figure (1) after Ralph's name, indicating that he
brought no family with him. His name first appears upon the
Hingham records in 1637, when he drew a house-lot on
"Batchelor Row," (now Main street,) at or near Pear Tree
Hill, the steep bluff at the beginning of the "Lower Plain."
This grant of land was bounded on the north by that of
Thomas Barnes.

Hingham, Plymouth County, Mass., is located about twelve
miles from Boston, by water, and twenty-six miles from
Plymouth. It is bounded on the north by Boston Harbor, on
the east by Cohasset, on the west by Weymouth, and on the
south by Situate and Abingdon.

Hon. John D. Long, in the History of Hingham, Vol. I, page
201, says Hingham is one of the oldest towns in
Massachusetts. There were settlers here as early as 1633.
Its first name was Bare Cove, owing, probably, to the
exposure, at low tide, of almost the entire bottom of the
harbor or cove in front of the town.

So far as it had any legislative recognition, it was
incorporated September 2, 1635, only eleven towns having, in
that respect, an earlier date. Perhaps, however, the term
incorporation is not appropriate in this connection, the
brief order which the General Court, consisting of the
Governor, assistants, and deputies, adopted and entered on
that day being as follows: "The name of Bare Cove is changed
and hereafter to be called Hingham."

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Mr. Solomon Lincoln, the historian of Hingham, Mass., in
1827, gives the following interesting facts:

"The exact date at which any individual came here to reside
cannot be ascertained. Among the papers of Mr. Cushing,
there is a `list of the names of such persons as came out of
the town of Hingham, and towns adjacent, in the County of
Norfolk, in the Kingdom of England, into New England, and
settled in Hingham.' From this list we are led to believe
there were inhabitants here as early as 1633, and among them
Ralph Smith, Nicholas Jacob, with his family, Thomas
Lincoln, weaver, Edmund Hobart and his wife, from Hingham,
and Thomas Hobart with his family, from Windham, in Norfolk,
England."

In 1635 there was a considerable increase of the number of
settlers, and grants of land were made to upwards of fifty
individuals, of which a record is preserved. In 1638 one
hundred and thirty-three persons came in the ship
"Diligent," John Martin, Master, and settled in Hingham.
These first settlers were men of character and force, of
good English blood, whose enterprise and vigor were evident
in the very spirit of adventure and push which prompted
their outset from the fatherland and their settlement in the
new country. They were of the Puritan order, rather than of
the Pilgrim element that settled at Plymouth a few years
earlier. The distinction between the two is now well
understood. The Pilgriras were Brownists or Separatists,
later called Independents, opposed to the national church,
insisting on separation from it, and reducing the religious
system to the simplest form of independent church societies.
It was natural that the spirit that led to reform and
greater simplicity in church methods and organization, which
was the aim of the Puritans, should go still further and
demand entire separation and independence, which was
Separatism, and of which the most illustrious type is found
in the Pilgrims who sailed in the "Mayflower," and settled
in Plymouth in 1620. Those who thus went to the extreme of
ecclesiastical independence were consistent in granting the
same liberty to others which they claimed for themselves; it

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is true that the Pilgrims were more tolerant than the
Puritans.

There is sometimes, undoubtedly, an inclination to
exaggerate the religious element in the early settlements of
New England. It was a mixed purpose that animated our
forefathers. There was in them the genius of adventure and
enterprise, which in later days has peopled our own West
with their descendants; there was the search for fortune in
new countries over the sea; there was the spirit of trade
and mercantile investment; there was the hope of new homes,
and the ardor of new scenes, all clustering around what was
unquestionably the central impulse, to find a larger
religious freedom than the restrictions, legal or
traditional, of the old country afforded. In these first
settlements the ministers were the leaders. Their influence
was supreme.

But with all this there was still, all the time, an immense
deal of human nature. The picture of the early time, if it
could be reproduced, would present a body of men and women
engaged in the ordinary activities of life, cultivating the
farms, ploughing the seas, trading with foreign lands and
among themselves, engaged in near and remote fisheries,
maintaining the school, the train-band, and the church,
holding their town-meetings--a people not without humor, not
altogether innocent of greed and quarrel and heart-burning,
yet warm with the kind and neighborly spirit of a common and
independent fellowship. They were neither visionary
philosophers nor religious fanatics. Their early records
deal with everyday details of farm and lot, of domestic
affairs, of straying cattle and swine, of runaway
apprentices and scolding wives, of barter with the Indians,
of whippings and stocks and fines for all sorts of
naughtinesses, of boundaries and suits, of debt and legal
process and probate, of elections and petty offices, civil
and military, with now and then the alarum of war and the
inevitable assessment of taxes. They smack very much more of
the common concerns of this world than of concern for the
next.

The first church in Hingham was formed in September, 1635,
by Rev. Peter Hobart of Hingham, England, who
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came in June of that year. Mr. Hobart was educated at
Magdalene College, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1625. He
declined the invitations of several settlements to become
their pastor, preferring to join that at Bare Cove, where
many of his fellow-townsmen in the old country were already
established.

The first settlers of Eastern Massachusetts did not find the
country covered with an unbroken forest; but from early
writers we learn that there were large tracts of land
entirely clear of trees and bushes, and that on the high
lands, where any trees grew, in many places they stood at
such distances apart that the grass grew luxuriantly between
them. Mr. Grus, of Salem, wrote in 1627: "The country is
very beautiful. Open lands, mixed in goodly woods, and again
open plains, in some places five hundred acres, some more
and some less. * * * * Not much troublesome to clear for the
plough. The grass and weeds grow up to a man's face. In the
low lands, and by fresh rivers, there are large meadows
without a tree or bush."

The burning of the grass and leaves by the Indians is
mentioned by Morton in 1632. He says: "The savages burn over
the country that it may not be overgrown with underwood. It
scorches the older trees, and hinders their growth."

Wood, in 1634, said: "In many places divers acres are
cleared, so that one may ride a hunting in most places of
the land. There is no underwood, save in the swamps and low
grounds, for it being the custom of the Indians to burn the
woods in November, when the grass is withered and leaves
dried."

Thus it is evident that the first settlers of Hingham were
not obliged to cut down the forest to clear the land before
they could plant their crops; but they evidently found
enough cleared to plant as many acres as they desired. It
was the custom of the Indians to prepare the soil for a crop
of Indian corn by placing in each hill, with the corn, three
little fishes. This practice they taught the first settlers,
who followed it until oxen were introduced, when the plough
and ox labor were used instead of the hoe and hand labor.

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At a very early period it was found necessary to grow other
crops besides Indian corn. Pumpkins were among the first of
garden crops; these were followed by the parsnip, carrot,
turnip, onion, beet, and cabbage. Potatoes were not
introduced into New England until 1719. Other field crops
grown were wheat, rye, oats, barley, beans, flax, and hemp.
The two last named were grown and used for making clothing.

The soil of Hingham is fair and in many places rich, and its
successful cultivation led to the rapid increase in the
number and area of the "planting fields" which were granted
from time to time. The almost circular harbor, surrounded
and protected on all sides by hills clothed with a growth of
oak, pine, and cedar, and guarded at its entrance by three
beautiful islands, which, like faithful sentinels, stood for
protection against the storms, called attention to Hingham
as an advantageous point for the construction of craft of
various description and size, and the development of a
prosperous foreign trade. Ship-yards and wharves soon dotted
the shore and multiplied with astonishing rapidity; and many
a stately vessel received her baptism and commenced her
perilous career in the little bay. The commerce which was
subsequently one of the chief sources of local wealth began
almost with the birth of the town.

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