Smith Genealogy: Second Generation

Generation No. 2

1. ISAAC² SMITH (ROBERT¹) was born 17 May 1786 in Clarendon County, Camden District, South Carolina, USA, and died 24 Jul 1861 at The Smith Place (his plantation), near Youngsville, Tallapoosa County, Alabama, USA. He married three times -- (1) SARA REBECCA LONDERS Bet. 1801 - 1802 in South Carolina. She was born 24 Mar 1787 in South Carolina, USA, and died December 1846 in Tallapoosa County, Alabama, USA. He married (2) MARY JANE GAULDING on 24 Aug 1848 in Coosa County, Alabama. He married (3) LUCY L. MCLENDON before Dec 1856. She was born Circa 1828, and she was his wife at the time of his death.

According to census and other records paired with some conjecture and analysis of data we have come to the conclusion that Isaac Smith was born in the Camden District, South Carolina in 17 May 1786, and he died in Tallapoosa County, Alabama on July 24, 1861.


We know Isaac Smith was married no less than three times. His first wife’s name was Sara Rebecca Londers; she chose to be called Rebecca. They were married (by estimate) in 1801 or 1802 as their first child, Elizabeth, was born in 1803 in South Carolina. From the 1820 Federal Census, we believe Isaac Smith relocated his family from Clarendon County in the Sumter District to Union County in District Ninety-Six, where he was listed as the overseer on the Estate of J. F. Gist. This move may have occured between the births of the first and second child because there is a four year span between their births. (It is possible that another child was born and died during that period, as well; but I have found no records that indicate such.) We know the family relocated again to Alabama by way of Georgia during the early 1820s, because the third son of the family, John J., was born in Georgia during or after the month of June 1822.


The first record we have found in Alabama for Isaac Smith is during the early 1820s where he settled in Montgomery County. While the family sojourned there, the area where they lived, which was simply called the Community of Brother John Browning, became part of Lowndes County, Alabama.


During the 1830 Census of Lowndes County, Alabama, one female 40-50 is listed with the family. This would be Rebecca. She also appears on the membership list of the Fellowship Primitive Baptist Chruch in Youngville, Tallapoosa County, Alabama, founded in part by her husband, after February 1837. Again, she appears (1 female age 50 - 60) on the 1840 Census at Fishpond, Coosa County, Alabama with her husband and three of their sons, George, Benjamin and Andrew. Therefore, it can be surmised that Rebecca (Londers) Smith died between Jun 1840 - Aug 1848, when Isaac married his second wife, Mary Jane Goulding. However, some family records have her death recorded as December 1846, stating the date was recorded in church records. (However, to date, I have found no definitive records that make this claim.)


Very little is known about Isaac's second wife, Mary Jane Gaulding. Isaac married Mary Jane Gaulding on Aug. 24, 1848 in Coosa County, Alabama, and she was still with him and present during the legal process of a land conveyance in May 1854, where Isaac Smith and wife Mary Jane were selling property to one William Bice. Between September 1855 to December 1856 Yellow Fever took a large toll on the population in Alabama. It is our belief that Mary Jane (Gaulding) Smith may have succumbed to this particular outbreak.


By December of 1856, Isaac Smith was already married to a Lucy L. M. (M^cLendon). She, being his wife at the time of his death, was some 42 years younger than Isaac. Less is known about Lucy L. M. Smith than either of Isaac's previous wives, but we believe she was a golddigger. I have seen family notes implying that Lucy's last name may have been Martin. However, it seems that the consensus believes she was a M^cLendon, as there were M^cLendons, suspected to be her brother's family, living with the Smith family at the time of the 1860 census.


Isaac Smith, reportedly one of the wealthiest men during the early history of Tallapoosa County, Alabama, possessed as many as forty slaves (perhaps more realizing that eight of them were mere children when he died) and considerable acreage that he both planted and tended regularly. He was a learned man, probably self-taught, for he could both read and write. Additionally, his knowledge about land acquisitions and management was probably learned through experience, trial and error.


His plantation in Tallapoosa County, known as The Smith Place, was comprised of a number of land grants and conveyances that Isaac won through lotteries or he bought over the years. Upon his death, this southern gentleman owned one square mile of land plus an adjoining one-hundred acers, giving him a total of 740 acers. The Smith Place harvested large bumper crops of wheat, peas, potatoes, oats and corn. Each year the plantings also yielded thousands of pounds of fodder for feeding livestock. The largest portion of the plantation, however, was reserved for the cultivation of cotton. According to what was sold from Isaac's "perishable property" in accordance with a dictum of the probate court, the cotton produced during the year Isaac died was in excess of 1,500 bushels. (That is nearly 50,000 pounds of cotton produced and harvested from one planting. At 30 cents on the pound -the going rate for cotton in that year- a harvest of that size easily could bring $15,000 or better in a good year.)


In addition to the fields, a large portion of the land was set aside for both farming implements and livestock; oxen, cattle, pigs, horses, mules, geese and shoats - all entered on the Estate's Sales Report, received by Probate Judge A. D. Sturdivant on 28 January 1862.


On 4 July 1861, Isaac Smith drew his Last Will and Testament after having fallen (possibly from a great height) sometime during the previous May, being ill and debilitated from that time forward. According to one record, he was "ill" for "about seventy-five days," before he passed away. In a deposition taken from Isaac's attending physician, Dr. James A. Kelly, said, "The nature of his disease, I supposed, to have received from an injury received in a fall which terminated, in cough and nausea at the stomach. The disease so far as I was able to Judge [sic] did not impair his mental faculties... I never saw the deceased out of his mind - he was weak and a good deal [illegible] but I considered him possessed of sufficient mind and memory to make a Will and dispose of property. The effect of [illegible] and severe pain upon the body is various ..sometimes it impairs a man’s mental faculties and sometimes it strengthens them." Isaac Smith died 24 July 1861. His will was contested, forcing his estate into probate, where it remained for two years and three months, finally being resolved and filed on 8 October 1863.


Several months after Isaac's death, an obituary was published:

'South Western Baptist Newspaper'
Death Notices
published 10-10-1861

"Departed this life at his residence in Tallapoosa County, Alabama on the 24th day of July 1861, Brother Isaac Smith, after a protracted illness of about seventy-five days. Isaac Smith was born in the Sumpter District, South Carolina May 17, 1786. He joined the Baptist Church in 1811..., He moved from South Carolina in 1818 and settled in what was then Montgomery County but afterwards Lowndes and there remaied until 1836, at that time he moved to Tallapoosa County, Alabama and here remained until his death..."

ISAAC SMITH appears in the following sources:
Census: Jun 1810, Clarendon County, Camden District, South Carolina, USA
Census: Jun 1820, Union County, District Ninety Six, South Carolina, USA
Church Membership: 17 Oct 1822, Mt Gilead Baptist Church, Lowndes County, Alabama, USA
Census: Jun 1830, Community of Brother John Browning, Lowndes County, Alabama, USA
Church Membership: Feb 1837, Fellowship Primitive Baptist, Youngsville, Tallapoosa County, Alabama, USA
Census: Jun 1840, Fishpond, Coosa County, Alabama,USA
Court Records: Records of the Circuit Court, Minutes and Decrees Chancery Court 1852-1855:, Dadeville, Tallapoosa County, Alabama - Pages: 399-402; 440
Census: Jun 1860, Youngsville, Tallapoosa County, Alabama, USA
Obituary: 'South Western Baptist Newspaper', Death Notices, published 10-10-1861
Probate: Between late July or early August 1861 - October 1863, Probate Court Records, Dadeville, Tallapoosa County, Alabama, USA


SARA REBECCA (LONDERS) SMITH appears in the following sources:
Census: Jun 1810, Clarendon County, Camden District, South Carolina, USA
Census: Jun 1830, Community of Brother John Browning, Lowndes County, Alabama, USA
Church Membership: Feb 1837, Fellowship Primitive Baptist, Youngsville, Tallapoosa County, Alabama, USA
Census: Jun 1840, Fishpond, Coosa County, Alabama


MARY JANE (GOULDING) SMITH appears in the following sources:
Marriage: Marriage Book B, Coosa County, Alabama - 1849 through 1852, pp 11, Smith, Issac to Gaulding, Mary Jane, Aug. 24, 1848, Wit: John Gaddis, J.P.
Land Conveyance: 02 May 1854, Talapoosa County, Alabama


LUCY L. (M^cLENDON) SMITH appears in the following sources:

Land Conveyance: Dated sometime in December 1856

(UNVERIFIED - I do not have a copy of this land transaction, but I have found several references to it in other family files.)
Isaac's Will: Isaac, her husband, leaves her land, part of his home and furniture -

"SECOND: I give to my beloved wife, Lucy L. M. Smith, the north half of the southwest quarter of Section Four in Township Twenty-three of Range Twenty-one, and the south room of my dwelling house with two beds and furniture with such other household furniture that she may want - also one kitchen and cooking utensils, also the following slaves; Oliver, Caroline, and Columbus, also my gray mare mule, one cow and calf, two sows and pigs, and a sufficiency of corn fodder, oats, and wheat and meat to support them the first year, the above property all to revert to my estate at her death to be distributed as hereafter provided."

Children of ISAAC SMITH and SARA LONDERS are:
i. ELIZABETH L. SMITH, b. 25 Feb 1803, South Carolina, USA; d. Bet. 07 Sep 1825 - 1840, Lowndes County, Alabama, USA; m. JOAB STEWART, 22 Oct 1819, Dallas County, Alabama; b. Circa 1796; d. Sep 1845, Tallapoosa County, Alabama (buried in the Old Fellowhip Primitive Cemetery).
ii. MARY ANN SMITH, b. 15 Jan 1807, South Carolina, USA; d. Aug 1845, Youngsville, Tallapoosa County, Alabama, USA; m. JEREMIAH SAMUEL JENNINGS, 07 Jul 1825, Montgomery County, Alabama, USA; b. Circa 1797, South Carolina, USA.
iii. ROBERT W. SMITH, b. 15 Mar 1809, South Carolina, USA; d. 12 May 1842, Coosa County, Alabama, USA; m. SARAH ANN PEARSON, 04 Mar 1831, Lowndes County, Alabama, USA; b. Circa 1807, South Carolina, USA; d. 07 Sep 1888, Tallapoosa County, Alabama, USA.
iv. ISAAC THOMAS SMITH, b. Aft. Jun 1810, South Carolina, USA; d. Bet. 1849 - 1850, Coosa County, Alabama, USA; m. MARY C. PEARSON, 18 Sep 1834, Lowndes County, Alabama; b. Circa 1808, South Carolina, USA.
v. CLARA ANN JANE SMITH, b. Bet. 1811 - 1819, South Carolina, USA; d. Circa 1850, Alabama, USA; m. WILLIAM S. CANTERBURY, 26 Jun 1834, Lowndes County, Alabama; b. Circa 1810.
vi. LOUISA E(MMA) SMITH, b. Bet. 1811 - 1819, South Carolina or Georgia; d. Circa 1841, Tallapoosa County, Alabama, USA; m. JAMES A. LOCKWOOD, 12 Feb 1834, Lowndes County, Alabama; b. 1811, New York.
vii. ADALINE TEMPERANCE SMITH, b. 22 Apr 1819, South Carolina or Georgia; d. 27 Dec 1912, Hanover, Coosa County, Alabama, USA; m. (1) BRISSO O'BRIAN; m. (2) WILLIAM B. KIMBROUGH, 11 Jul 1837, Tallapoosa County, Alabama; d. Circa 1855, Possibly Tallapoosa County, Alabama.
viii. JOHN J. SMITH, SR., b. Bet. Jan - Jun 1822, Georgia, USA; d. Aft. 1861, Coosa County, Alabama, USA; m. MARY FRANCES PODY, 26 Dec 1842, Coosa County, Alabama; b. Circa 1823, Wilkes County, Georgia; d. 31 Dec 1850, Coosa County, Alabama.
ix. GEORGE³ WASHINGTON SMITH, b. 12 Aug 1825, Montgomery County, Alabama, USA; d. 24 Aug 1897, near Kellyton, Coosa County, Alabama, USA; m. MARY ANN SPIVEY, 19 Jan 1842, Coosa County, Alabama; b. 08 Nov 1822, Johnston County, South Carolina (or possibly Autauga County, Alabama); d. 06 Aug 1915, Kellyton, Coosa County, Alabama.
x. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SMITH, b. Jan 1828, Montgomery County, Alabama, USA; d. Aft. 1861; m. LUCY E. CORNELIUS, 19 Sep 1851, Coosa County, Alabama.
xi. ANDREW JACKSON SMITH, b. Circa 1831, Lowndes County, Alabama, USA; d. Bet. 04 Jul 1861 - 08 Oct 1863, Possibly in Mississippi; m. ADELINE DELOACH, 04 Jul 1858, Coosa County, Alabama; b. Circa 1834, South Carolina.

There were no children born to Isaac's other marriages beyond Sara Rebecca that I am aware of.