Our Wyche great-great-great grandparents

Here are Gus Tillett's maternal grandparents, Pamela Evans Wyche (1789-1869) and James Wyche (1785-1845). These pictures are apparently part of the special collection at the Public Library of Charlotte-Mecklenburg in N.C.; they are posted on the Wyche family website mentioned earlier.

This couple's married life was divided between Brunswick County, Virginia, and Granville County, North Carolina. Most of their children were born in Va.

Our Smith great-great-great grandparents

These images are also from the Smith book. They are Mary's maternal grandparents: Frances "Fanny" Martin Smith (1799-1862) and Samuel H. Smith (1795-1853). Fanny is at a disadvantage here next to such a young image of her husband!

This couple lived in Wake County, North Carolina, for a while, later moving to Hardeman County, Tennessee, and finally to Dallas County, Arkansas. They had five children of their own, and later they reportedly helped raise the five children of Sam's sister Mary "Polly" Crisp after she died.

Later picture of Mary Smith Tillett

Here is a lovely picture of Mary "Mamie" Tillett, said to have been taken in 1913. It's in the online book, Smith of Abram's Plains.

The only photo we presently have of her husband Augustus "Gus" Tillett, is the one published in the Tillett book. He is shown with his siblings.

Image of Anne William Smith (1830-1871)

Anne was born in Wake County, N.C., just a few miles north of Raleigh, on the plantation where her mother was born, Forest Hill [this according to info I found on line]. Her portrait was painted in 1847 by an artist named Grunewald while she attended the Moravian Seminary for Young Ladies in Bethlehem, Pa.; she turned 17 that year. The college is now named Moravian College & Theological Seminary. This copy is from the online version of Smith of Abram's Plains.

In December 1849, after the Smith clan & other North Carolina families had migrated to Arkansas, she married her father's first cousin, Benjamin M. Smith. Benjamin was said to have graduated from the University of N.C. in 1844. Anne's family actually lived in Hardeman County, Tenn., for several years, before making the move farther west.

Anne Smith had thirteen children, dying at age 41 after the birth of the youngest one on their plantation called Tulip Farm, just six years after the Civil War ended. Mary Benjamin Smith was 10 years old when her mother died; the following year her father married another cousin, Anne Wilson Smith.

According to Aunt Mame's notes, it was in 1894, the year before our grandfather Henry was born, that Mary Smith Tillett wrote a letter to the seminary to inquire about the painting of which she had heard her mother tell...Mary specified that the portrait was to be inherited by the eldest daughter in each generation of her daughters.

Another Battle of New Orleans ancestor

According to the Rev. John Haynie family history book, John's father Spencer Haynie, Jr., was not only a Revolutionary War soldier who received a land pension in Tennessee, but he was with General Andrew Jackson for the Battle of New Orleans in 1814-15, the final confrontation of the War of 1812!

This means that we have a Battle of N.O. soldier on each side of our family, Henry Covington of Robertson County, Tenn., who lost his life in this service; and Spencer Haynie, Jr., of Knox County, Tenn.  This seems remarkable to me, and somehow especially so since we lived in New Orleans without being aware of this heritage.

Smith Clan of North Carolina and Arkansas

Before this year, I had relied quite a bit on The Reverend John Tillett Family History (1955), by C. W. Allison, for background information on the Smith family who moved to North Carolina from Virginia in the late 1700's. We have a "double dose" of the Smith lineage in our ancestry because our great-grandmother Mary Benjamin Smith's parents were first cousins, once removed.

There seem to have been quite a few Smith men who, during the 19th century and earlier, were bestowed with a military title, either officially or unofficially --- usually Colonel. And I've just learned that Mary's great aunt (of the Martin family) was married to a General Nathaniel Smith, one of the many extended family members who established the Tulip community in Dallas County, Arkansas. (He was of a different Smith line and hailed from Chatham County, N.C., instead of the more northern Caswell and Granville Counties.)

There's a Smith descendant named Jonathan Kennon Thompson Smith who has written at least two books: Smith of Abram's Plains (1988), which refers to the name of a large Granville County plantation established during the latter part of the 18th century, and The Romance of Tulip Ridge (1966). Both of these books are out of print and were possibly self-published. I recently looked at an online version of the Abram's Plains book, and the author has added pages quite recently!

J.K.T. Smith is widely regarded as an authority and has been quoted extensively on the RootsWeb Caswell County Family Tree. Accordingly, our most prominent Smith Revolutionary War ancestor was Samuel Smith (1729-1800); he was designated a Colonel in the Granville Regiment in 1778 and is the founder of the large plantation already mentioned. My 2008 blog entry named Col. Maurice Smith as a Revolutionary officer, but this was incorrect. Maurice (1776-1835) was one of Samuel's sons and served as the sheriff of Granville County, having been the paternal grandfather of Mary Smith Tillett. Col. Samuel Smith's wife was Mary Edmondson Webb, and Maurice's first wife (mother of Benjamin M. Smith) was Frances Goodwin.

Mary's maternal grandfather was Samuel H. Smith (1795-1853), who was a grandson of Col. Samuel Smith, through Maurice's elder brother Samuel, Jr. (1765-1816). Samuel Smith, Jr.'s wife was Elizabeth Harrison. This family established a plantation called Hycotee, after the Hyco River, in Caswell County. Their son Samuel Harrison Smith [or originally just H. for Hyco -- to distinguish him from a cousin born elsewhere] married Frances Alston Martin, of the Forest Hill plantation in Wake County, N.C.

Whereas Mary's paternal grandparents died long before the migration of some of the clan to Hardeman County, Tenn., and in 1848 or 1849 on to Arkansas, her maternal grandparents Sam and Fanny moved to Arkansas along with their daughter Anne William Smith and other family members.

Reportedly the Smith properties in N.C. are still owned and occupied by descendants (of family members who didn't move to Arkansas). At least one of the manor houses, the one at Hycotee, was recently demolished, however.

There may be Smith descendants living on the remnants of the Arkansas plantations, as well. The one established by Benjamin M. Smith (1824-1877) was called Tulip Farm and may have been quite prosperous before the Civil War. Dallas County took quite a beating during and even after the war, since many of the settlers left and did not return.

Our Smith immigrant ancestor is said to have been a Scotsman named Alexander Smith, who arrived in Virginia sometime during the 1600's.

Post script: Non-electric sewing machines

Since Alice Morgan Powell's letter of 1888 discussed her new sewing machine, it occurred to me that this was probably too early for electricity in rural Texas, so she must have been talking about a mechanical sewing machine.

I found a picture in Wikipedia of a treadle model, which apparently meant that a foot pedal was used to move the parts. That's interesting when you think about it, because the foot pedal was retained on 20th century electric models --- adapted as a way to engage the power.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singer_Corporation#Singer_Buildings