Ohio History Journal

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TOURS INTO KENTUCKY AND THE NORTHWEST

TOURS INTO KENTUCKY AND THE NORTHWEST

TERRITORY.

 

 

Three Journals by the Rev. James Smith of Powhatan County, Va.,

1783-1795-1797.

 

 

SKETCH OF REV. JAMES SMITH

 

BY JOSIAH MORROW, LEBANON, OHIO.

The writer of the following journals was born in Powhatan

county, Virginia, September 17, 1757, and died near Columbia,

in the Northwest Territory, July 28, 1800. He resided in his

native county nearly all his life, his removal to the north side of

the Ohio having been made less than two years before his death.

His paternal ancestors, it is believed, came from England.

The first of them of whom we have any account was his grand-

father, George Smith, of whom there is a tradition that, when a

youth, he moved from the eastern coast lands of the colony of

Virginia to the valley of the James river, taking with him only

his buffalo robe, gun and tomahawk. He was a hunter, but he

became a man of wealth and left to his son, Thomas, a large

landed estate, situated in Powhatan and Chesterfield counties,

a mile or two from the James river, and about twenty miles above

Richmond.

Thomas Smith was also a wealthy man and was able to leave

to each of his six children a good farm and a number of slaves.

He was three times married and by each marriage had one son

and one daughter. His third wife was Mrs. Margaret Guerrant,

of Huguenot descent; her maiden name was Trabue, and she

was the mother of James. Strangely as it seems to us, the two

elder sons were each christened George, and each had for his

middle name the maiden name of his mother. The eldest was

George Rapin (or Rapeen); the second, George Stovall. The

eldest, however, was familiarly known at home as Mill-pond

George, from the mill-pond near his birth place. In his first

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