Thomas S. Smythe, lawyer, was born in Washington County, Va., June 29, 1827, and is the son of Dr. James C. and Ann H. (Orr) Smythe, the former born in the above county July 7, 1790, the son of John A., a native of Ireland, who came to America as a clerk Lord Cornwallis’ army, and at the close of the Revolution settled in Pennsylvania, and married Caroline Hays. He then went to Virginia, engaging in boot and shoe making and afterward in farming and trading. He died, while on a trading expedition, at Natchez, Miss., in 1795. Dr. J. C. was reared where Emory and Henry College now stands, and studied law at Jonesboro with E. F. Sevier and J. A. Aiken as classmates. He then exchanged his law library for medical works, and began practice in Virginia, and in 1837 in this county, and finally, in 1854, in Henry County, where he died two years later. He was the first resident physician of this county, and was highly esteemed as a man and physician. The mother was born June 2, 1802, in Virginia, the daughter of John Orr, a native of Pennsylvania. She died in 1863. Our subject, the eldest son of nine children learned the tanner’s trsde, at which he worked until after his thirtieth year. In 1858 he became magistrate of this county, and in 1861 chairman of the county court. He was appointed magistrate by Gov. Brownlow, and in 1865 became clerk and master. He soon afterward began the practice of law, continuing until 1882, when he became a clerk in the pension department at Washington, where he remained until February, 1883, when he became special examiner to travel through Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Missouri. On June 15, 1886, he resumed practice in Mountain City, and has succeeded finely as a lawyer. In March, 1881, he was commissioned special judge by Gov. Hawkins. On February 22, 1849, he married Margaret, a daughter of Richard Donnelly, and born near Mountain City December 2, 1828. Five sons and two daughters, of nine children, are living.

Transcribed from Godspeed’s History of TN (1896)