John C. SMITH, clerk and master of the chancery court, was born near Elizabethton, August 26, 1844, the son of James O. and Rosana (Ellis) SMITH, the former born in 1818 in North Carolina, the son of Caleb Smith, of Pennsylvania, who is mentioned in the sketch of J. P. SMITH. The mother was born in Carter County, the daughter of John ELLIS. Our subject was educated at Elizabethton, and when seventeen went through the lines, and July 2, 1862, joined Company F, Second Federal Tennessee Infantry, and on November 6, 1863, was captured at Rogersville and imprisoned at Belle Isle, Richmond, then in Andersonville, and finally exchanged December 15, 1864, He then went to Annapolis, and returned to Knoxville; but on March 19, 1865, rejoined his command at Cumberland Gap. He was mustered out at Knoxville June 19, 1865. He then entered the claim business at Elizahethton until 1868, when he began merchandising. In 1873 he entered his present office. On December 22, 1868, he married Eva V. a daughter of Isaac P. TIPTON, deceased. She was born in April, 1845, and has borne five children to our subject. Both parents are Methodists.
Transcribed by Kris L. Martin
Source: Goodspeed Publishing Co. History of Tennessee from the Earliest Time to the Present: Together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of from Twenty-Five to Thirty Counties of East Tennessee. Chicago: Goodspeed, 1887.