Gen 7: Peter Smith (1734-1797) and Jemima Simpson (1743-1793)
Father’s 3x Great Grandparents, Parents of George Rudolphus Smith, Round Hill, NC
George R. Smith was the son of Peter Smith of Round Hill and Jemima Simpson. This Peter Smith owned a plantation on Hogan’s Creek in Caswell County NC, just one mile inside the North Carolina state line, three miles south of Danville, Virginia. I could walk you onto the property. I gave you the GPS coordinates earlier. The Round Hill Plantation was known at the time as one of North Carolina’s most prosperous plantations. It was a large operation with many slaves. How Peter treated his slaves we do not know. The mere fact that one person owned another person is disturbing enough. It was culturally acceptable at that time, economically important and somehow justified by many very scrupulous and reverent people who believed in God and used the Bible to justify the institutional crime. “Moses himself was a slave!” one defender of the institution argued. Slavery is a disturbing tragedy to find in one’s history.
Peter wasn’t the first in our family to own slaves and he wasn’t the last. His slaves were handed down to his children and his children’s children. The slaves were identified by their first names in a will that often gave them a value of $700 if they were a hardy male and less if they were too old or female. A good female could bring a higher value if she was of good breeding stock. The first slave to be sold by one plantation owner to another in Virginia was sold by William Whittington, a great grandfather (GGF6) in my wife’s family tree, another alarming discovery.
There are numerous disturbing facts that can be found in the will of a plantation owner. A will often distributed an enslaved woman’s children to various households across the land, destroying her family for a profit. People were treated as chattel, livestock moved about to provide labor. People were identified as little more than farm machinery and traded for 1000 pounds of tobacco or an old plow horse. I learned of these things in history class when I was half asleep and bored to tears in high school. Finding these lives being destroyed in my own house brings home the harsh reality of atrocities I thought were foreign to my family.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why Peter Smith of Round Hill was lost in our family tree. Perhaps George Smith wanted to leave the plantation behind him as he headed north into Kentucky and Indiana, where acceptance of slavery was waning. Perhaps his son Peter of Posey wanted to bury the history along with the unspeakable horrors of a civil war witnessed by a nation. For whatever reason my father never knew of his roots in North Carolina and Virginia. The sins of the slave master were the sins of a nation, of many nations who trafficked in slave labor: abducting men, women and children in one part of the world and shipping them like cattle across a sea. These were the sins of my forefathers that a family chose to forget.
Slaves were a commodity discussed, along with tobacco, rum and sugar cane in the corporate board rooms of England, Holland, France, Spain and Portugal. The Dutch treated their cattle with greater care and concern than they did the slaves they incarcerated in slave ships. One man was assigned to four cattle on each Dutch shipment of livestock to the New World. My father’s 8xGGF, Wulfert Gerritse von Kouwenhoven was responsible for the safe passage of livestock to New Amsterdam in 1630. The care that he provided livestock was mandated by corporate directives. The documentation can be found online. Wulfert provided each of his cattle with adequate bedding, food and water to insure they were healthy on arrival in New Amsterdam (Manhattan, New York).
Early on in this growing mass of drivel I promised side stories found in our family history. While stumbling blindly through research related to Caswell County NC, I found the name Tom Lea. His family had business transactions with our family. The Lea family and Smiths were neighbors in an 18th Century sort of way. Deja Vu hammered inside my head and my mind could not let go of the name ‘Tom Lea,’ until bing, bang, BOOM! Cannons roared, wolves howled, and my head then became very quiet. “Shite!” I muttered, “Tom Lea!“
Kunta Kinte and the Smith Clan
If the name doesn’t ring a bell, let me remind you of the novel and television saga known simply as Roots. I think a remake of the 1977 epic mini-series just showed up on Netflix. False stories abound in family trees for a variety of reasons. I have elaborated on one such story in our own family tree: Peter Smith of Posey did not defeat Napoleon.
False stories take on a life of their own. Politicians use them all the time to sway public opinion and wield power. In a family tree an author can use the false story to embellish an otherwise lackluster branch with an electric connection. Roots, an epic example of the mass marketing of a false story, occurred when Alex Haley’s Roots played to an audience of one hundred and thirty million viewers. It has been demonstrated that Haley’s work was historical fiction borrowed from Harold Courlander’s The African and Haley’s representation of the Haley family tree was false.
But Kunta Kinte was a very real human being who suffered the atrocities inherent in slavery. Kinte was taken hostage and held captive on a ship, the Ligonier, the captain of which was a Thomas Davies. We do have a substantial number of the Davis family in our tree. They were seafaring merchants and mariners whose exploits at Jamestown and Popham are well documented. But the Thomas Davies who brought slaves to the colonies was not a great grandfather in our tree; a distant cousin perhaps or great uncle. That picture remains obfuscated. Available records do not reveal a direct link to our family. Our connection to Kinte goes far deeper than Thomas Davies.
Kunta Kinte’s daughter Kizzy, was also a very real human being. Kizzy learned of Africa and her ancestors, a proud people, educated and possessed of their own rich culture and religion in the Gambia. Kizzy was sold away from her parents and into the hands of another plantation owner in North Carolina. Kizzy was raped by that master and her son Chicken George was conceived. It was the master’s way of saying, “I own you. You are my property and I can make you do whatever I damn well please! Now get to work.” Haley brought that horrific reality to our television screen and left an indelible impression on all of us. We shuddered to think that a person could really do that to another human being. The story of Kunta Kinte and Kizzy was long ago and far away, or so we told ourselves in 1977. I took psychological comfort thinking we have moved past a barbarous history. We still have a distance to travel.
Chicken George was able to buy his freedom and learned to survive in the world of the white man. His surname (last name) was Lea, only because his master/father was identified in the novel as Tom Lea, the slave owner who raped Kizzy. Google ‘Tom Lea Caswell County NC’ and find yourself in Caswell County, North Carolina. Tom Lea was not a fictional character. The video version of the book gave Tom Lea the surname Moore.
We are not descended from Tom Lea, but Tom Lea’s grandparents, aunts and uncles, were all neighbors to the family of our Peter Smith at Round Hill. Tom Lea’s father, Major Lea, grew up with George Rudolphus Smith and George’s siblings. George Smith’s father, Peter of Round Hill, and Major Lea’s father, James Lea, were involved in several land transactions in Caswell County. James Lea and Peter Smith of Round Hill died within the same year and their properties descended into the hands of their children.
It makes me pause now when I meet an African American with the surname Smith or Davis. Are we related? Aren’t we all related in God’s eyes? How is it then that one man could own another? And yet, the Bible is replete with stories of warfare, executions, adultery and enslavement. My forefathers twisted these facts in the Bible and believed that the black person was an inferior being. God intended for the white man to provide care for the lesser being and in return received the benefit of their work. It was a crock of crap, but it sounded good to slave masters and it sure provided a ready source of labor for the tobacco and cotton fields and it allowed the white guy to smoke a cigar and play cribbage on Sunday afternoon while the slaves did all the work.
The history of a family is never pretty. There are points at which the story tellers may delete significant chapters of a family story or remove a branch from the family tree. Such was the case when the television show Finding Your Roots accommodated actor Ben Affleck and edited out information about his slave owning ancestors in Savannah, GA, Connecticut and New Jersey. Affleck later explained that he was embarrassed to be associated with such a disgusting person. “It left a bad taste in my mouth,” he added. He did not want the information aired. Perhaps George Rudolphus Smith did not want the family information aired.
Peter Smith was referred to as “Round Hill Peter Smith” in census reports, to distinguish him from another Peter Smith who happened along. He was born in Prince William County, Virginia in 1734 and may have been the oldest of James Smith’s sons. He married Jemima Simpson, of Fairfax County.
Jemima’s father was George Simpson. In his will George named several children and added that his daughters who had already married and left home had received their share. This was customary. A dowry of property usually accompanied a young lady as she was betrothed. George Simpson identified two sons, Aaron and Richard, in his will. Men by these names resided in Caswell County, down the road from Jemima Simpson Smith, in later years. A researcher who spent a good deal of time looking for the first Simpson in America believes John Simpson, a Scotsman, settled in Stafford, Virginia late in the 1600’s. This would put the Simpson family in the company of the Smiths on the Great Neck in Westmoreland County.
I found this sketch identifying Round Hill NC, online.
At first glance this note appears useless, but with the use of Google Earth this chard of evidence becomes incredibly valuable. Entering Hogans Creek NC into the software eventually locates the creek as it enters the Dan River in Caswell County. By simply moving upstream we find the fork for the Round Hill Branch and we are home among our family in mid-18th Century colonial America.
Peter Smith purchased 202 acres of land from George Counts in Orange County, North Carolina. The sale was registered in Corbin Township in November of 1764. Caswell County was carved out of Orange County in 1777 and Peter’s property was in a section that became Caswell. His land was on the north side of Hogan’s Creek at the confluence with the Round Hill Branch as shown in the scratch drawing.
Peter Smith went into the Revolutionary War on the side of the patriots of North Carolina. The North Carolina militia also included William Davis family members in the Smith tree and the Williams family in my wife’s tree. It was customary for war veterans to submit applications seeking payment from the founding fathers for service rendered during the war. Payment could come in the form of pounds and often deeds to land west of the Appalachian Mountains. Peter’s certificate reads as follows:
“Peter Smith. No.592. State of North Carolina, Hillsborough District. Auditors office the 7th day of August 1782. This day certify that Peter Smith Exhibited his claim and (was) allowed fourteen pounds six shillings and pence. (Signed) John Nichols.”
Peter Smith died in 1797 in Caswell County. His will was dated April 18, 1793. It is assumed that Jemima preceded him in death as she was not mentioned in his will. I have attached Peter’s will in the appendix. Numerous children are identified: Elizabeth, Martha, Jesse, Moses, Aaron, James, William, Pressley, George Rudolphus Smith, John B., Elias and Elijah. They needed a school bus to get to church. The will reveals several slaves moving from one household to another: A slave named Jane, and a horse with saddle ends up with Elizabeth. A slave Bess and another horse move off to the home of Martha. Peter’s son Jesse gets possession of a boy named Lewis, Moses gets slave Edmond and Aaron Smith gets a girl named Fannie. And then there is a reference to “other property consisting of land, negroes, stock, household furniture, etc.”
What is most interesting is a passage regarding
“My Negro Anthony who though not absolutely free, I will that he have liberty to have his own choice from time to time, to serve which of my children he shall choose, and not to be confined to any one particular, but if ill-treated by one, to have liberty to go to another as he shall see fit, and not to be sold to any other person.”
Peter showed a high regard for Anthony and granted the man some autonomy not often found within the bounds of enslavement. Why didn’t Peter just give the man his freedom? There were periods of time in North Carolina history in which it was illegal to free a slave. It created confusion for the white folks who were responsible for rounding up fugitive slaves. A freedman needed to carry the paperwork from the master who freed him (or her). White folks were also nervous about the damage a freed black person could do to the economic system in which the whites made their profits. A black man moving freely about the county could create insurrection among slaves, and at the very least, create envy among slaves who dreamed of freedom. Peter’s will may have been written at such a time in history. Again, it seems like a nice gesture on Peter’s part, but hey… Anthony remained a slave. Tough to think about.
Peter and Jemima are also believed to have had a son named Robert, a preacher, and a daughter Susan, although they are not named in the will. They may have preceded their father in death.
The question always arises when the genealogist faces a migration of a large share of the family and friends. Why? Why did so many of Peter Smith’s children move in a relatively short time to a same location? Something in Muhlenberg County KY was more attractive than what George R. Smith and his siblings left behind.
A record found among the Caswell County deeds holds a clue. Ironically the deed speaks of the high sheriff of Caswell County, Gabriel Lea. Yet another tie to the saga of Kunta Kinte and Roots.
“Caswell, NC Deeds M, p. 154, Jan. 27, 1802 Gabriel Lea, high sheriff, to George Smith: £145 for 322 acres on Hogan’s Creek sold resulting from writ of vendition exponas, issued on the 4th Monday of Oct. 1801, adjoining William Pullin, James Whalebone, Greenbury Voss, Thomas Swan, George Humphreys, David Lea and William Robertson to satisfy debt owed Richard Hornbuckle extr. of Thomas Hornbuckle dec’d, and herewith sold to George Smith bounded by Peter Smith, George Humphrey, Thomas Swan, Pullins, James Arnett, the Salisbury Road and William Patterson, formerly purchased by John Royal from Peter Smith by deed dated Dec. 20, 1798”
A writ of vendition is served when a seller must sell property to cover a debt owed to others. The writ is issued by the sheriff under order of the court. The writ forces the seller to accept the best offer on his land regardless of whether he likes the deal. The proceeds then go to cover debts, whether they be the seller’s personal debt or debt they must cover as an executor of a will. The record above indicates that the sheriff raised 145 pounds of cash for the sale of 322 acres on Hogans Creek. The Round Hill property of Peter Smith is thus sold to cover debt. The transaction occurs in 1801. The neighbors are all identified and some of those names like Whalebone, Voss and Hornbuckle do look familiar to me. Whalebone for example was a member of the Chappawamsic Baptist Church of James and Elizabeth Smith in Stafford County. We will meet the congregation shortly. James and Elizabeth were the parents of Round Hill Peter Smith.
A History of Muhlenberg County (Kentucky), by Otto A. Rothert, 1813, states that, “Paradise, Kentucky, is one of the oldest places in that county. It is about a mile from Old Airdie (named for a town in Scotland), and is built on land first settled by Pioneer Leonard Stom.” Rothert notes that among the first settlers in this neighborhood were three of the sons of Peter Smith of North Carolina: Aaron, James and Elias. Records show that eight sons of Peter and Jemima Smith eventually moved to Muhlenberg County, where some or all of them obtained land. Their first and middle names were: James Simpson, Moses F., John Bailey, Pressley Wheeler, William Wigginton, Elias Guess, Aaron Fairfax and Jesse W. One of the daughters, Martha, also made the move. From Round Hill to Paradise KY was a 430-mile journey without benefit of a UHaul and through the Cumberland Gap into hostile lands. All of those making the journey were certifiably sane and taking their chances, as we will see.
Our direct line of 18th Century ancestors eventually shed their lives as plantation owners and aristocrats in an economic system premised on the belief that one man could own many people and force labor from those slaves and servants. George Smith adopted the skills and tools necessary for survival in a landscape that drew him further and further into the heartland of a new world. We will find ancestors in our tree who went as far west as Olathe, Kansas and Tyndall, SD and muttered, “What happened to the trees? Where did the trees go?” They eventually found their back to the east side of the Mississippi River and helped create a demand for McDonalds hamburgers, John Deere tractors, Musky lures and Chicago Cubs paraphernalia.
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Editor’s Note: I was handed a flyer at the grocery store. Are we going to this?
Author: What is it?
Editor: A beer tasting at Wilbur’s cabin.
Author: Oooof! The last one nearly killed me.
Editor: I told you not to enter the Habanero contest.
