SMITH FAMILY OF SUMNER COUNTY. In Sumner county is the famous family seat, Rock Castle, now a century and a quarter old, and through many generations the home and center of family associations and memories of the Smith family and its related branches. The present owner of this historic estate is Mrs. Horatio Berry of Hendersonville, and one of the descendants of this old home. The founder of this branch of the Smith family was Henry Smith, who came from England and first settled in Maryland, and later moved to Stafford county, Virginia. He married Sarah Crosby, and one of their children was Gen. Daniel Smith, the founder of the family in Tennessee, and the builder of Rock Castle.

Daniel Smith was born in Stafford county, Virginia, on October 29, 1748, and died at his home in Rock Castle in Sumner county. He was educated at William and Mary College, and, like many of the young men of talent of his day, became a surveyor. In 1771 he married Sarah Michie, of the eastern shore of Maryland, and soon afterwards settled upon the western waters. He was appointed deputy surveyor of Augusta county in 1773. At that time Augusta county embraced nearly all of southwestern Virginia. Mr. Smith settled in that part of the county which later formed Botetourt, then Fincastle, then Washington and finally Russell county. His place was on Clinch river, twelve miles below Blackmore's Fort at Maxwell's Hill. It was known as Smith's Station, though the fort was called Fort Christian. This was in the advance guard of settlement thrown across the Alleghenies, previous to the Revolution, and which had remarkable results in holding all the central west as far as the Mississippi river within the possessions of the American colonies after the Revolutionary war.

As early as 1774 Mr. Smith was captain in the colonial troops, and was one of the most active company commanders in Dunmore's war. The correspondence which passed between him and his superior officers shows him to be a man of education beyond most men of his day. He participated in the crucial battle of Point Pleasant on the Ohio river in October, 1774, this engagement being regarded by his friends as one of the most important fought on the western slope of the Alleghenies during the eighteenth century. He was also active in many engagements with the Indians throughout this country. During the Revolution his station was on the frontier, guarding against the combined attacks of Indians and British. He was a member of the committee of safety for Fincastle county in 1775, and of a committee that sent resolutions to the Continental Congress July 15, 1775, in which they declared that they would "never surrender their inestimable privileges to any power on earth but at the expense of their lives."

When Washington county was organized, Captain Smith was appointed one of the justices of the peace by Governor Patrick Henry. December 21, 1776. On the same day he was appointed major of Washington county militia. In 1780 he was appointed sheriff of Washington county, and the next year, upon the reorganization of the militia, he was commissioned colonel in the second battalion. In 1779 he was appointed with Dr. Thomas Walker to extend the line between Virginia and North Carolina, which line had been run by Jefferson and others. He was in the battle of King's Mountain, and soon after the close of the war in 1783, with the Bledsoes, Shelbys, Blackmores, Neeleys and others came to Tennessee.

As one of the pioneers of Tennessee, Major Smith located a large body of valuable land near the present town of Hendersonville in Sumner county. In 1784 he began the building of Rock Castle, but owing to the depredations of the Indians, the house was seven years in being completed. It is constructed of cut stone, has seven large rooms, and is as sound today as when built and has been "the roof tree" of five generations, and is now the property of Mrs. Horatio Berry, a great-great- granddaughter of General Smith. Two carpenters engaged in the construction of the house left work one Saturday afternoon to fish in Drake's creek nearby and were killed by the Indians. Two youths, one a son of Col. Anthony Bledsoe, and the other a son of his brother, Isaac Bledsoe, were living at General Smith's and attending school at Hendersonville, and were killed by prowling Indians. Samuel Donelson, who was General Jackson's law partner, married General Smith's only daughter. He died of pneumonia while on a visit to the Hermitage.

In 1790 General Smith was appointed by President Washington secretary of the ceded territory south of the Ohio. He was elected by the first legislature of Tennessee, one of the four presidential electors. In 1798 he succeeded Andrew Jackson in the senate of the United States, and was again elected in 1805 and served until 1809. In 1793, in the absence of Governor Blount, he acted as governor of the territory. He was a member of the constitutional convention of 1796. He made the first map of Tennessee, published by Carey of Philadelphia, and used by Imlay in 1794. Michaux, a French botanist and noted traveler, who passed through this section of the country in 1802, and after his return to France, published an interesting book of travel, speaks of his visit to General Smith, of the beautiful fields of cotton and corn which surrounded his house, of the translations of foreign works his library contained, and of the quiet studious and exemplary life led by a retired public servant. Living at a time when many public men were justly or unjustly the object, not only of censure, but of official accusation, it is worthwhile to publish the following from Jefferson's paper: "Daniel Smith was a practical surveyor whose work never needed correction. For intelligence, well cultivated talents, for integrity and usefulness, in soundness of judgment, in the practice of virtue, and in shunning vice, he was equaled by few men and in the purity of motive excelled by none."

Smith county in Tennessee was named in honor of General Smith, and he was easily one of the foremost among Tennessee's distinguished citizens during the making and founding of this state.

The only daughter of General Smith and wife was Mary, familiarly known as Polly. Samuel Donelson, the son of a neighbor, was the object of her affections, but there were parental objections to the successful culmination of their romance. The story of how they overcame the difficulties in the pathway of love is about as follows. One night in 1797, when Polly was in her sixteenth year, her suitor Donelson and Andrew Jackson, afterwards president of the United States, placed a sapling ladder beneath her window. In this manner she quietly left Rock Castle, and got up behind Jackson on horseback and the party crossed the river below Rock Castle, and went to what was known as the Hunter's Hill neighborhood where the marriage was performed. Polly Donelson never returned to Rock Castle, until after her husband's death, and she was left a widow with three children. These children were: John, who served in the Creek war and died soon afterward; Andrew Jackson ; and Daniel Smith. Andrew J. Donelson became a protege of President Andrew Jackson, and under the influence of that great political leader, received many, promotions in public life. Daniel S. Donelson, the third son of Polly built and lived in the brick house which is now the home of Mrs. Horatio Berry.

This sketch cannot be properly brought to an end, without the insertion of a document which contains much interesting reminiscence and statement of facts concerning some of Tennessee's most noted characters. It is the statement of Mrs. Daniel Smith, the widow of General Daniel Smith, and it is quoted practically without change as follows: . "As well as I remember Mr. Smith and myself settled here in the year 1784. At that period, or shortly after that, Mrs. Donelson and family were among the families who came and settled on the south side of Cumberland river, where though they were but a few miles from me, yet in consequence of the river running between us, and the danger of visiting in those days, I did not become acquainted with them for two or three years after. The family, however, were universally spoken of as one of the most respectable and worthy of the whole country. The first time I ever saw Mrs. Jackson, then Mrs. Robards, was at the station of Colonel Mansker. One of her brothers had not long before brought her from Kentucky, where she and Mr. Robards had married and settled. The cause of her return to Tennessee was then attributed to the cruel and unjust treatment of her husband, who was spoken of everywhere as a man of irregular habits and much given to jealous suspicions. About two years after I first saw Mrs. Robards, I learned that Robards had arrived in this country and by the assistance of the family of his wife, that their differences had been reconciled and that they were again living together at Mrs. Donelson's. They were not long together, however, before the same unhappy apprehensions seized the mind of Robards, the consequence of which, was another separation, and as it soon appeared, a final one. All the circumstances attending this rupture, I cannot attempt to state at this late day, but it is hardly possible, considering the free and unreserved intercourse that prevailed among all the respectable classes of people here, that an incident of this kind should occur without being fully and generally known and that every person should concur in the same upon its character, without the best reasons. In this transaction, Mr. Robards alone was censured and I never heard a respectable man or woman intimate that his wife differed from the most virtuous and prudent female. General Jackson boarded at the time in the home of Mrs. Donelson, and it was the general belief that his character and standing, added to his engaging and sprightly manners, were enough to influence the mind of poor Robards, addicted as he was to vicious habits and the most childish suspicions. Mr. Robards had not long been gone from Tennessee, when information was received here that he had obtained a divorce from his wife. Whether the information came by a letter or by a newspaper from Virginia addressed to my husband, I cannot say with certainty, but think by the latter. It was after this information came that General Jackson married Mrs. Robards and I recollect well the observation of the Rev. Mr. Craighead in relation to the marriage. It was, that it was a happy change for Mrs. Robards and highly creditable to General Jackson, who by this act of his life evinced his own magnanimity, as well as the purity and innocence of Mrs. Robards. And such was the sentiment of all my acquaintances. Since this period, I have lived in a few miles of Mrs. Jackson and have never been acquainted with a lady more exemplary in deportment or one to whom a greater share of the respect and regard of friends and acquaintances can be awarded.

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