Husband William Smith
Born: 4 Feb 1797 - London Britain, Chester, Pennsylvania
Christened:
Died: 23 Sep 1863 - London Britain, Chester, Pennsylvania
Cause of Death: Heart failure
Buried: - Flint Hill Ch, London Britain, Pennsylvania
Father: John Smith (Abt 1769-1847)
Mother: Isabella Smyth (Smythe) (Abt 1769-1843)
Marriage: 10 May 1821 - New London Presb Ch, New London, Chester, Pennsylvania
Wife Mary Dehaven
Born: 14 May 1803 - London Britain, Chester, Pennsylvania
Christened:
Died: 18 Feb 1882 - White Clay Creek, Delaware
Buried:
Father: Jesse Dehaven (1773-1835)
Mother: Mary Madeleine Pluck (1774-1838)
Children
1 M John D. Smith
Born: 3 Nov 1821 - White Clay Creek, Newcastle, DE
Christened:
Died: 5 Jan 1881 - near London Britain, Chester, DE
Buried: - Flint Hill Cemetery, London Britain, Chester, DE
Spouse: Annie E Garrett (Abt 1825-1905)
2 F Sarah A. Smith
Born: 28 Aug 1823 - White Clay Creek, Newcastle, DE
Christened:
Died: 29 Jan 1903 - near London Britain, Chester, Pennsylvania
Buried: - Flint HIll Cem, London Britain, Chester, Pennsylvania
Spouse: Robert Montgomery (1822-1903)
Marr: 19 May 1847 - London Britain, Chester, Pennsylvania
3 M George I. Smith
Born: 31 Jul 1826 - London Britain, Chester, Pennsylvania
Christened:
Died: 25 Jan 1905 - prob Cecil Co, Maryland
Buried:
Spouse: Annie E. Reddell ( - )
4 F Mary Jane Smith
Born: 14 Feb 1829 - White Clay Creek, Newcastle, Delaware
Christened:
Died: 1916 - prob Cecil County, Maryland
Buried: - Flint HIll Churchyard, London Britain, Chester, Pennsylvania
Spouse: William Armstrong (1822-1903)
Marr: 1849 - prob London Britain, Chester, Pennsylvania
5 M William Henry Sr. Smith
Born: 14 Oct 1830 - London Britain, Chester, Pennsylvania
Christened:
Died: 19 Aug 1911 - philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Buried:
Spouse: Mary Emma Thompson (1844-1923)
Marr: 15 Feb 1871 - philadelphia, Pennsylvania
6 M Jacob Reed Smith
Born: 7 Mar 1834 - White Clay Creek, New Castle, DE
Christened:
Died: 16 Jul 1900
Buried:
Spouse: Emma Ratcliffe ( - )
7 M James P Smith
Born: 11 Jan 1837 - White Clay Creek, Newcastle, Pennsylvania
Christened:
Died: 28 Nov 1911 - White Clay Creek, Newcastle, DE
Buried:
Spouse: Emily Henderson ( - )
8 M Samuel D. Smith
Born: 23 Oct 1839 - White Clay Creek, New Castle, Delaware
Christened:
Died: 6 Feb 1898 - prob Lockington, Ohio
Buried:
Spouse: Mattie (Martha) J Singles (Snigles) (1844- )
9 F Lizzie (Elizabeth) Smith
Born: 26 Sep 1842 - White Clay Creek, New Castle, DE
Christened:
Died: 24 Jul 1924 - London Britain, Chester, Pennsylvania
Buried: - New London Presb Ch graveyard
Spouse: John Westly Kennady ( - )
Marr: 1864 - prob London Britain, Chester, Pennsylvania
10 M Winfield Scott Smith
Born: 28 Apr 1847 - White Clay Creek, New Castle, Delaware
Christened:
Died: Jan 1908 - Kemblesville, Pennsylvania
Buried:
Spouse: Almeta (1854- )
General Notes (Husband)
buried in cemetery of Flint Hill Church ("Wesley" in my great grandfather's family history; almost noone remembers that name) Bought a huge farm that spanned the Delaware- Maryland-Pennsylvania border. When the Delaware-Pennsylvania border moved for a time in the 19th century, his part of White Clay Creek was in London Britain for a time. Was and is now in Newark, Delaware.
William was a very ambitious man, a local political leader, and served several terms in the Delaware legislature. His son, my great grandfather, wrote that as a youth he was a lively and active lad, who loved sport. He was started as an apprentice stonemason, the son of a poor weaver, and ended up building numerous large and public buildings, then in business with his brother selling farm threshers big time in Maryland, then bought the farm.
He was apprenticed as a stone mason, developed his career into a successful building contracting business, got lucrative public contracts, then went into business with his brother George for a time selling farm machinery up and down the east coast; this business was based in Maryland. Then he visited "relatives" in Ohio who unless they were his siblings or relatives of his siblings in law, must have been family of John and/or Isabella Smith and members of a group one line of the family think came together from Ireland.
He didn't like the back woods, so he returned and bought a huge farm, half of which lay in Cecil County, Maryland; the rest lay in "the Wedge" that changed hands between Pennsylvania and Delaware. This farm was successively split among his descendants; parts of it were sold only very recently and one or two Smiths still live there. New London Road runs through it, immediately south of the current state line. A second farm house was built across the street by one of William's sons whose wife didn't get on with William's wife, Mary Dehaven (it seems that both mother in law and daughter in law were fiery and something of cranks). That house is still there. It appears to be mostly descendants of two sons; William Henry Sr and James P, who stayed on that property for any time at all, and entirely descendants of James P who were there at all recently and still are.
It isn't clear when he did all of this. His sister, who lived briefly in Mount Ephrim Ohio around 1834, and apparently in Maryland by 1842, before heading to points west, lived with her parents in 1831 when she witnessed documents concerning her parents' property. In 1832, William Smith acquired a 122 acre property in White Clay Creek, according to deeds obtained by my mother. William Smith had been married since 1821 and had a child born slightly under six months later. The not quite 18 year old bride was five years younger than he. Hmm, I guess William was an active, jolly boy.
William was a local political leader, and served several terms in the Delaware state legislature, though his land at the time was in Pennsylvania (a situation everyone joked about). He would have known well his neighbor, a member of his future daughter-in-law's Thompson family, who was speaker of the lower house at the time. Both families had two generations of descendants politically active in Delaware and clearly benefitting from family political connections. One of my great uncles was a member of the five person state board of education fresh out of college in his early twenties, as well as a member of the state legislature, while he was preparing for the Bar!
He died suddenly of heart failure at age 67.
Father has an Anna D. Smith d 2/25/05 in her 80th year from cemetery.
From Biographical Encyclopedia of Delaware:
Their son, William Smith, was born in Chester County, PA, in 1797, died suddenly, of heart failure, September 23, 1863; he was a farmer, a Democrat in politics, and a member of the Methodist Church. William Smith married Mary DeHaven, born in May, 1800, in Chester County, PA; also a Methodist. Their children are: (see my genealogical files for their children, one of whom, Winfield, was omitted from the list).
William, the eldest, father of the subject of this sketch, a robust, active lad, was apprenticed to a mason, Robert Christy, of Cecil County, MD, and on completing the trade, began business for himself which rapidly increased and gave employment to many workmen and apprentices; numerous large buildings were erected, and public contracts were taken for work on the New Castle and Frenchtown Railroad and the Delaware and Chesepeake Canal.
Of fine athletic physique, vivacious and aggressive, William Smith soon became a leader in sport as well as in business. On February 10, 1830, he was appointed adjutant of the Chester County Union Volunteer Battalion, by Governor Geroge Wolf, of Pennsylvania; the commission is still in the family. In 1832, in company with a friend, he visited Ohio to see relatives and, perhaps purcase a new home, but not being pleased with the "back woods," as the West was then called, he returned and bought a farm in Delaware, near the "Mason and Dixon" line, known as the Summit or Street far, in which he removed his family in October of the same year, and on which he resided until his demise in 1863, incresing the extent of the farm from 125 to 300 acres.
William Smith, or as he was more generallly calle din his own community, "Billy Smith", was in some respects a remarkable man, and left his impress on whatever of dealing or enterprise he undertook. Quitting the trade after moving to Delaware, he, with his brother George, secured the right to make and sell threshing machines, clover hulers and corn shellers throughout the Eastern Shore of Maryland, and ocntinued in the business through the thirties. But his delight was the farm and he was in the van of the most progressive farmers of his community. In the latter "forties" and early "fifties" he was elected, first as a representative and afterward as a senator to the Delaware Legislature, serving three terms, and was appointed by Governor W. H. Ross as one of his aides, thus acquiring the honorary title of Colonel.
While in the State Senate, Mr. Smith was frequently alluded to as "the gentleman from Pennsylvania", from the fact that his residence and a large part of his farm wee embraced in the traingular tract of land between the states as shown by the survey of 1849, the dispute concerning which has been agitated in later years, leading to the appointment by the legislatuers of both states, of commissioners, who met in joint commission and re-surveyed the circular boundary, planting stones thereon. This survey and the line marked have been severely criticised as to their correctness, and John I. Johnston, whose farm is situated near the western initial stone, and whose property had been in Delaware ever since it was a state, but was put into Pennsylvania by this survey, refusing to accept the transfer, was compelled to apply to the courts of Pennsylvania for pretection; he still maintains his citizenship in Delaware, and the troublesome line is apparently still unsettled.
William Smith married Mary DeHaven May 10, 1821, and ten children were the offspring of the union, seven boys and three girls, all of whom married, and all of whom lived to see their fiftieth birthday, leaving forty grandchildren. The DeHavens are of French extraction. One, Peter Dehaven, and two brothers, Samuel and Jacob, cme to this country in 1690 an settled in Montgomery County, PA, at the Gulph, in Upper Merion Township. They were engaged in vine culture in France, and brought considerable wealth, and in the Revolutionary times when Washington and his army were suffering at Valley Forge, and provisions, money and credit were alike scanty, Jacob DeHaven and others were appealed to by Wshington and Robert Morris, the financier, in an hour of dire extremeity, and tradition and records alike attest that Jacob DeHaven nobly loaned the Continental Government $450,000 in gold and landed securities, besides cattle, provisions and grain. Samuel, his brother, an officer in the army, also gave financial assistance. The latter was the grandfather of Mary DeHaven Smith, whose father, Jesse DeHaven, removed from Montgomery to Chester county in 1800 and purchased , in partnership with his father Samuel DeHaven, the Wright farm, known in after years as the DeHaven Homestead, which was near the John Smith family farm. Mary DeHaven Smith survived her husband some twenty years, and they now lie side by side in a beautiful enclosed family burial plot in Wesley cemetery, in South Side, Chester County, and a monument stands a white sentinel keeping vigils over their resting place, as well as that of John and Isabella Smith.
In Delaware Bible Records, Vol 4 by Donald M Hehir is the genealogical record in William Smith's family bible, purchased in 1834, then owend by Mrs. Harry I. Garrett.
It confirms the birth years of John and Isabella Smith.
General Notes (Wife)
My father has her place of death as Cecil, Maryland. Now, half of the Smith farm was in Maryland - but I've no evidence that my parents ever unearthed that detail. I'm pretty sure I found her living in the White Clay Creek farm in the 1870 census. She certainly lived there when her sons were raising children there.