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When I was a little girl, before I went to school, my mother worked in the District Forest Service Office for the Umatilla National Forest. My mother's parents, my Grandpa and Grandma Smith, took care of me. Family Stories were a tradition in our family. When adults talked of times and people I didn't know about, I'd ask, "Where was I, Grandma? Where was I when that happened? Where was I, Grandma?"
Grandma never had any satisfactory answers about the birds and bees and why I wasn't around when all the fascinating stories in the world were aborning -- rather than me. So when I asked, "Where was I, Grandma?" her standard answer was: "You were ... Froggin'.'"
It was, of course, a totally frustrating answer for a curious five-year-old. Many years later when I began trying to find answers about our Smith ancestry, the answers were still elusive. Because of the dearth of information about them, the Smith Heritage has been ... Froggin' since Grandpa Smith's father was killed in Umatilla County, Oregon during the Bannock Indian War in 1878. In 1969, I started actively researching my ancestry with the primary goal of providing Grandpa Smith with answers about his unknown father. Grandpa Smith lived until 1971, which, as it turned out, gave me little more than a year to solve this mystery, and as it turned out, I wasn't even within twenty years of unlocking the secrets. Even now the remaining secrets and mysteries and enigmas plague me in the middle of the night, and I'm running out of time!
The Smith were destined to go on ... Froggin' until early in 1997 when I began uncovering the first of a number of illuminating clues and references which I believe have finally put me on course with them. Preparing a research paper on my ancestor and the Bannock War, I discovered an 1878 newspaper reference which indicated where George Strather Smith was killed and buried south of Pilot Rock in Umatilla County, Oregon. This information has opened many psychic wounds as well as many genealogical doors for me. Grandpa's immediate Smiths are still ... Froggin', but I believe I have found a part of the Smith Family from which we descend. As always, in genealogy, the newest answers quickly become the newest questions, which is a part of the fascination of the whole thing.
When I examined the land records for Fentress and Overton Counties, Tennessee, where some of the Watts and allied families lived, I found listings for a Strother Frog. There was also a George Smith listed among these land records. When I checked the three volume genealogy of the Strother family, I found that a prominent branch of the Strother family was descended from an intermarriage with ... Frogs! It should have occurred to me from the very beginning!
I began looking for Strother clues, and possibilities of connections to Smith, Watts, and Markham families, knowing that these families had been associated for since the 1820's in Kentucky and Tennessee. Previously I had been intimidated by the ubiquitious nature of the Smith surname and had finally become convinced that I would never find Grandpa Smith's ancestors. In retrospect, it's seasy to observe that no further progress could be made if only direct line surname research had been continued. The Smiths would have gone on ... Froggin' forever.
THE FRAGILE CLUES
I. First, my chapter, "The Families In Missouri -- Watts, Smith, Enos," presents the basic information about these families. My Grandpa Smith's father, (George Strather Smith's father of the same name) came from Missouri to Oregon in 1875 to join the Alfred Watts family, who lived on a small farm south of Weston in Umatilla County, Oregon. His companion was Elihugh "'Lihugh" Brock, whose sister Sarah had become Alfred's second wife after the death of my ancestor, Sarah Elizabeth Enos in 1872. On 10 May 1876, the year following his arrival in Oregon, George S. Smith married Alfred's daughter, Florence Josephine Watts. After the murder of George Strather Smith, my grandfather George Strather Smith, Jr. was born posthumously on 11 January 1879. Josephine remarried the following year to William "Sam" Grant on 8 February 1880 , also in Umatilla County.
II. The only four clues I had about George Strather Smith Sr.:
1. A NAME: His unusual middle name, Strather, which I believed was a variant of Strother. The given name George occurs in both Strother and Smith families I've examined.
2. A TIME LINE: An approximate age and time frame from his marriage record. Umatilla County, 10 May 1976, giving Florence Josephine Watts' age as "over 18," and George S. Smith's as "over the age of 21."
3. A LOCALE: Grandpa Smith's mother told him that G. S. Smith had come from "the area of Lee's Summit, Missouri." I felt this had great importance considering that the Watts family had come from Cass County and Josephine had distinguished her husband's origin as different from the Watts Family. Lee's Summit lies in Jackson County, east of Kansas City. Cass County is south and Johnson County, borders Cass on the east.
4. SECONDARY AND TERTIARY LOCALES: Grandpa's listing on 1900 census in Sam and Josephine Grant's family, near Fossil and Condon, Wheeler County, Oregon indicating that his father, George Strather Smith Sr., was born in Kentucky. It quickly became apparent that the Smiths had most likely come from Virginia, just as the Watts and Markham families had.
THE EDWARD PLEASANTS VALENTINE PAPERS
I have found on the internet, additional clues that lead me to believe that our Smiths are a part of the descendant families of Francis Smith the carpenter of St. Paul's Parish in HanoverCounty Virginia. Francis Smith was also the ancestor of a wonderful Virginia historian and researcher, Edward Pleasants Valentine, whose research on 33 Virginia Families comprise his Edward Pleasants Valentine Papers, first published in 1917. The Papers run to four volumes and nearly 3,000 pages of Virginia records . Mr. Valentine concluded that Francis Smith was the son of William Smith, who was son of the illustrous Lawrence Smith, the Surveyor who laid out the town of Williamsburg. I am not convinced of this, but substantiative evidence to the contrary is as hard to come by as it was for Mr. Valentine to make his case.
Mr. Valentine had good reasons for his conclusions, which centered on the identity of Francis Smith's mother. William Smith was married to Elizabeth Ballard. Ballard is a continuing name in Francis Smith's family. The family "story" was that Francis Smith's father was "Dr. John Smith, and his mother was Elizabeth Ballard." After weighing the evidence, Mr. Valentine decided that the "Dr. John Smith Part" was erroneous and the "Elizabeth Ballard Part" was correct.
HENRY STROTHER AND THE WILLIAM AND MARY QUARTERLY QUERIES
I found and subscribed to a searchable site, jstor.org which houses (among other journals ) the entire collection of William and Mary Quarterly issues, dating into the 19th century. I found three 1912-3 listings in the WMQ from a Henry Strother of Ft. Smith Arkansas. He never did delineate his interest in the Smiths, but he did provide the information that in a small cemetery near Jerico, in Henry County, KY was the grave of John Smith, whose tombstone proclaimed him the son of "Park Smith -- Virginia." This message was a genealogical homecoming for me, one of those moments of exultation when we suddenly connect a variety of loose anestral threads.
WMQ Ser. 1, Vol. 22, No. 4. (Apr., 1914), pp. 276-277.
p.276 Some NOTES on Smith, Strother, Houston and Jones :
"In VOL XXI #3 is query on Park Smith. Interesting old letters and family records have been dug up which show he was son of Francis Smith and Elizabeth Waddy of Hanover County and Francis Smith was son of Dr. John Smith and giving parents of Elizabeth Waddy etc. and show that Col Wm. Preston(2)(John1) m. Susannah Smith sister of this Park Smith and hence she is ancestress of all the great Prestons of the south. Statesmen, governors, generals etc. I have interest to present it if you deemed it worthy.
"In Aug Sep and Oct I spent nine weeks searching records etc in Ky and VA. In the Clerks office in Bowling Green I found the original will (record book gone) of Robert Strother(4) brother of Captain John (Francis#) William 2, William1, and this Robert is ancestor of many prominent Strothers of Kentucky and Missouri who do not know their ancestry back to Robert son of John Dabney Strother of Nelson Co., KY.
"I spent five days in the clerk's office in Culpepper and found some records the kind clerk said were not there." {Concludes with some additional information regarding the ancestors of Sam Houston and some spent days at the mountain home of cousins P. W. Strother.)
WMQ, Ser. 1, Vol. 23, No. 2. (Oct., 1914), pp. 143-146 Historical and Genealogical Notes
Page 204: "Park Smith of Virginia. Near Jerico, Henry County, Kentucky is the old John Smith family graveyard and in it is a broken tombstone lying flat on the ground with the following inscription:
JOHN SMITH
son of
PARK SMITH
VIRGINIA
DIED
December 8th, 1852
In the 82nd year of his age
"John Smith m. Mary Starrs Russell daughter of Lt. John Russell of the Revolutionary Army and they l ived in Hanover County, Virginia until 1805 when they removed to Henry County, KY. Probably connected with Ballard Smith. Henry Strother, Ft. Smith, Arkansas."
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