Ancestors
Col. Daniel Smith
1764-1841 · Long Street
Born 1764, Cumberland County, North Carolina
Died 1841
Father: Malcom Smith
Children include Alexander
Daniel Smith was born on 2 October 1764 in the Long Street congregation on the upper Cape Fear, the youngest son of Malcom Smith, one of the church's first elders, and his wife Sarah Peterson. His grandfather John Smith had come out of Knapdale in Argyll with the first Highland families. The sermon at Long Street was preached twice each Sunday, once in English and once in Gaelic.
On 15 December 1785 he married Ann McKay, a granddaughter of Archibald McKay, the elder who sat beside his father on the Long Street session. Her father was a Loyalist who took the rest of his family to the Bahamas after the war. Daniel and Ann had fourteen children over thirty years. He was called Colonel by the end of his life, and a later marker counts him a soldier of the Revolution.
In 1834 three of his sons, Alexander, Daniel and Lauchlin, led a colony of Scotch Presbyterians from Long Street to Wewoka Creek in Coosa County, Alabama, carrying letters from the church. Neill and Archibald went to Wilcox County. He stayed. He died on 18 June 1841, aged seventy six years, eight months and sixteen days, and was buried in the family ground in Quewhiffle township, now in Hoke County. Ann was laid beside him three years later.
Sources
GEORGE EVANS BREWER, History of Coosa County, Alabama, written about 1904 and printed in the Alabama Historical Quarterly, volume 4 (1942), with a family history contributed by one of Alexander Smith's daughters.
ON JOHN H. TOWNSEND. The Roger's Mill Road to Wetumpka was established on 6 December 1847 "with Alex. Smith, Donald Ferguson, George Graham, and John H. Townsend as reviewers." In the sketch of the Carolina neighbourhood: "There were two other Grahams, relatives, who died comparatively young, but each left a family, the widow of one, a sister of Judge Archibald McMillan, married John H. Townsend, a fine citizen, and early settler... John H. Townsend lived here until sometime in the fifties when he moved near Talladega Springs, where he lived till his death. The writer boarded with him, and taught at Carolina in 1851, and remembers the year as a green spot in memory, owing to the pleasant home and neighborhood." In the sketch of Judge McMillan: his sister, "Mrs. Graham, afterwards Mrs. John H. Townsend, survived." And in the Smith family history: "Alexander Smith's first wife was Catherine McNeill, married and died in Carolina, leaving an infant daughter, Margaret, who after she was grown, married John H. Townsend, who moved about 1853 from Coosa County to Talladega Springs, his last wife being Mrs. Graham, formerly Miss McMillan, sister to the second wife of Alexander Smith."
ON ALEXANDER SMITH. "He was of Scotch descent, a native of North Carolina, born about the latter part of the eighteenth century. He came with quite a number of others of Scotch descent from the old North State and settled in the Wewoka neighborhood early in 1834. The county and church was called Carolina for a long time. They formed a thrifty settlement, and soon organized a Presbyterian church of which he was an Elder. Smith lived here until after the death of his McMillan wife in 1842. After this he married a daughter of Solomon Robbins, and bought the Larkin Cleveland farm at Nixburg. Here he farmed and traded in stock, during the most of his after life. He was twice appointed to fill vacancies in the office of sheriff. He did not seek office until 1857, when he was one of the candidates elected to the House." The Argus of November 1842 "tells of the death of the wife of Alexander Smith, from the bloody flux that was so fatal among the Scotch settlers of what was known as the Carolina neighborhood." The family history adds that before he moved he came out alone to look at the country, lay sick for weeks at his cousin Malcom's, and was told of his first wife's death only on the road home, twenty miles from Fayetteville; and that he "died at Talladega Springs, whither he had gone for health, August 29th, 1871, in his 78th year." His last wife was Jane Robbins, who survived him thirty years and died at Nixburg on 17 November 1901.
THE FAMILY HISTORY. "Three of whom were among the early settlers of Coosa County, Alabama, Alexander, Daniel, and Lauchlin. Their great grandfather, John Smith, with two children, Malcom and Janet, came over from Scotland about 1736 (their mother, Margaret Gilchrist, having died on the voyage), and settled with other Scotch families along the Cape Fear and in Cumberland County, North Carolina. From Sketches of N. C., we find that in 1765, in the organization of Longstreet Presbyterian Church, that Malcom Smith was a ruling elder, and from that same church, in Cumberland County, these three brothers brought letters when they came to Alabama in 1834. Malcom Smith married a Mrs. McKasick, formerly Miss Peterson. From this marriage were six sons, John, Malcom, Patrick, Duncan, Neill, and Daniel (and two daughters). Daniel was the father of the three brothers who settled in Coosa County, and two other sons, Neill and Archibald, who moved to Wilcox County, Alabama, about the same time. Perhaps it is well to mention here, that Janet Smith, the sister who came over from Scotland with her brother, Malcom (grandfather of the three brothers of whom we are writing), and daughter of John Smith, was married to a McNeill, and was known in the Revolutionary history of North Carolina as Jennie Bahn, and was noted for her daring and bravery in time of war."
What else agrees with it. United States Census, 1850, Coosa County (1:1:MHPY-13Z): ALEXANDER SMITH, born 1793 in North Carolina, with Mary, born 1825 in Alabama, and children Thomas born 1833 in North Carolina, Jody Ann 1836, Malcom 1838, John 1840, Mary 1847 and Sarah 1849, all Alabama. The eldest was born the year before the move and the next four are the McMillan wife's; the last two are the Robbins wife's. Find a Grave Index: ALEXANDER McKAY SMITH, born 23 April 1793, died 29 August 1871, buried in Elmore County, which is the lower part of old Coosa. Brewer's "78th year" and the stone's dates count together.
Margaret Smith's own dates are not in Brewer, only that she was an infant when her mother died, before 1834, and grown when she married. Thomas was born in 1837 or 1838, John H. Townsend married Amanda Lyle in November 1848, and the wife before Amanda is the one Brewer names. Find a Grave memorial 155328879, Smith Cemetery, Quewhiffle Township, Raeford, Hoke County, North Carolina, photograph.
Gravestone in the Smith (McKeithan) burying ground, Quewhiffle Township, Hoke County, North Carolina, as transcribed on Find a Grave memorial 155328015: "IN MEMORY OF ANN, (large raised letters in stippled background) A. S. Relict of Col. Daniel Smith, and da(u)ghter of Alexr. & Margrt. McKay Born June 24, 1768, Died Dec 26, 1844, Aged 76yrs, 6ms, 2 dys." A white marble marker with a low gable top, damaged by one rifle shot; the footstone also has a gable top. Burial and dates also in Cemetery Records, Hoke County, Smith (McKeithan) Cemetery, 1814-1866, and in Sandhills Families: Early Reminiscences of the Fort Bragg Area, which give the marriage of Daniel Smith and Anna McKay as 15 December 1785.
The children are in Douglas F. Kelly, Carolina Scots (1998), page 159: "Daniel Smith d. 1841 in Cumberland County, m. 1785 Ann McKay (dau. of Alexander and Margaret McNeill McKay). All of their sons and three of the daughters moved to Alabama", followed by fourteen children, the fifth "Alexander McKay b. 1793, d. in Alabama 1871". A county heritage book's sketch, "The Family of Alexander McKay Smith", gives the Coosa brothers' parents as "Daniel Smith and Anna McKay, of Cumberland County, North Carolina".
His gravestone and his wife's, Find a Grave memorials 155328879 and 155328015, Smith Cemetery, Raeford, Hoke County, with photographs. George Evans Brewer, History of Coosa County, Alabama Historical Quarterly vol. 4 (1942), the Smith family history. Douglas F. Kelly, Carolina Scots (1998), pages 158 to 160.
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Cite: Heirology, "Col. Daniel Smith (1764-1841)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/col-daniel-smith-1764-1841-f03dd5.