*[Nein, ich kann mich nicht entscheiden.]
Marilyn Hansen recently gave us a good fill-in on Adam Smith, the eldest child of Michael Smith, Jr., and his wife Anna Magdalena Thomas. I am going to copy some of the material here to make the Smith story more complete. Apparently, Adam was the first of the Michael Smith family to leave the Robinson River Valley. He sold his land in 1772 in Culpeper Co., VA, and apparently moved to Augusta County, for he was a curate (assistant to a rector or vicar) for five months in 1773. His next appearance in the records is in Kentucky in 1780 and 1782 where he acquired land. In two of these entries, he is noted as Reverend Adam Smith.
The will of Adam was proved March 1793 in Mercer County, KY, with a wife Elizabeth, sons Ezekiel, Benjamin, and Solomon, and a daughter Elizabeth. The witnesses to the will were Zacharias Smith, John Smith, and John Samuel Mow(?). Zacharias and John were his two brothers. The identity of this Rev. Adam Smith as the son of Michael Smith, Jr., of the RRV seem to be proven by the appearance of the names Adam, Zacharias, and John together in Virginia and together in Kentucky.
Elizabeth, apparently Adam’s wife, appears in the tax records in 1796, in 1800, and perhaps in 1810, though at this latter date the location is Warren County. Probably this is not the same Elizabeth.
The fact that Adam was at one time a curate and then later a Reverend was news to me. As I indicated in a recent note, I believe the father, Michael, Jr., was briefly the leader in the German Lutheran (“Hebron”) Church in the RRV . Michael, Sr., was a collector of funds for the church and a Church Warden in 1733 and 1740. This is the same Michael who accompanied John Caspar Stoever, Sr., to Europe on the fund-raising trip. The family had a long association with the church in major roles.
Michael Smith, Jr., who had inherited all of his father’s land as the only son and who had purchased land in his name, gave this land away by gifts to his three sons and four sons-in-law from 1762 to 1772. The land that Adam sold in 1772 was the land that his father had given him.
*[No, I cannot decide.]
(21 Mar 07)
We gratefully acknowledge the work of John Blankenbaker who published over 2,500 Germanna History Notes via the [email protected] email list from 1997 to 2008. We are equally thankful to George Durman (Sgt. George) for hosting the list and republishing the notes via rootsweb.com.