#52 Ancestors 2023 Week 9 Gone Too Soon: 1748–A Bad Year for the Smith Family

 1748 turned out to be a very bad year for the Smith family of St. Leonard's Creek, Calvert County MD.* Three members of the family died in quick succession in the fall of that year.

Captain Richard Smith, (my 8X great grandfather, about whom I have previously written), had two sons: Richard, by his first wife, Elizabeth Brooke, and Walter, by his second wife, Barbara Morgan.

Walter Smith, born at Richard's plantation at St. Leonard's Creek about 1692, married Alethea Dare, the daughter of Nathaniel Dare and Mary Cleverly, about 1715. Walter and Alethea had five sons and a daughter: John (1715), Walter Jr. (1717), Richard (1720), Charles (1724), Alethea 1731) and Nathaniel (1734). Walter served in the lower house of the Maryland legislature and also as a justice in Calvert County.

Walter Smith Jr. wrote his will on 28 August 1748, leaving his personal estate to his wife, Sarah Young Smith. He asks that his son Walter III be brought up and educated in the Church of England and also mentions that his wife is great with child. He designates his brother Richard to manage the sale of his estate. Three days later, Walter was dead at age 31. So whatever killed him, it must have come swiftly. His daughter, Alethea Smith, was born posthumously on 23 October 1748.

Will of Walter Smith Jr. 1748

His father, Walter Smith Sr., wrote his will on September 1 and mentions his deceased son, Walter. Walter Sr.'s will indicates that he was in great weakness of body, and he too was dead by mid-October at age 56. He leaves his plantation to his wife Alethea and property to his sons Richard, John, Nathaniel and Charles, daughter Alethea Parker and grandson Walter, who is about a year old at the time. 

But death is not finished with the Smith family. Richard Smith, the son of Walter Sr. and brother of Walter Jr., who was the executor of his father's estate, wrote his will 21 September 1748 and died a few days after his father's will was brought for probate in October 1748. Richard was not married and so leaves his property to his brothers John, Nathaniel and Charles and his sister Alethea.  He also mentions his nephew, Walter Smith.  He names his mother as his executor, and she also takes over as executor of his father's estate. 

So, what brought about this rash of deaths in the Smith family? Disease? Coincidence? No one is really sure, but there was an outbreak of smallpox in Maryland and Virginia during this time period, so that is one possibility. 

Sadly, even these three deaths were not the end of the tragic Smith story. 

Walter Smith Sr.'s widow, Alethea, remarried soon after her husband's death to the Rev. George Cook, the Scottish-born rector of Middleham Chapel in Calvert County MD, a widower with seven children. She died under horrible circumstances in 1753, as the story from the Maryland Gazette indicates:

While Rev. Cook was indicted for her murder, the jury found the evidence too circumstantial and did not convict him. 

Peggy Smith Taylor

Just to tie up a few loose ends:

By 1754, the rest of the Walter and Alethea Smith's sons (John, Nathaniel and Charles) were dead, and eight-year-old Walter Smith III became the owner of the St. Leonard's Creek property, which he kept until his death in 1804, when it passed out of the Smith family. Walter married Ann Mackall about 1774, and he and Ann were the parents of first lady, Margaret Mackall (Peggy) Smith Taylor, wife of President Zachary Taylor. 

Coincidently, the Smith property was purchased by my 4X great-grandfather, Captain John Peterson, and remained in his family for four generations.  So, I have double family connections to St. Leonard's Creek. 

*(My thanks to Alex Glass of the Jefferson-Patterson Museum for his excellent analysis of these events, which alerted me to this pattern of death in the Smith family.)