Shelby  County  Indiana
Family  Records

David  Smith

[This book has a lot of material taken from "The Hacker Record", written by William Hacker prior to 1881.]

          "My maternal grandfather, David Smith, as he himself has left it on record, was born in Essex County, New Jersey, Feb. 23, 1743.
          At the commencement of the trouble between Great Britain and her American Colonies, Grandfather Smith jealously espoused the cause of the Colonies and stood a true and firm patriot to his country during all that long and terrible struggle for freedom and for independence.
          If Grandfather Smith ever had any brothers and sisters I never heard of them.  My impression is, however, that whatever family his parents may have had, they were all killed in some of the battles fought with the foraging parties of British by the irregular companies of New Jersey Militia, and out of the whole of them Grnadfather and his family alone escaped.
          David Smith's immediate ancestors on arriving in America settled in Morris and Essex Counties, East Jersey, which lies immediately on the opposite side of the Hudson River from New York.  It was then known as East Jersey, but now embraced in the counties of Morris and Essex.  Here David Smith grew to manhood. The names  Smith,  Ball,  and  Alexander  were so numerous that in the attempt to follow the line of descent I soon became lost and confused and was forced to give it up.
          Grandfather Smith was not above five feet six inches in height, very slender, average weight one hundred forty pounds.  Light complexioned, and straight in his general makeup.
          He, David Smith, married  Lydia Ball, who was born on Morris County, New Jersy, about 1744.  She had at least one full sister and a half sister.  Her own sister, Deborah, married  Gabrial Wright.  After Great-grandfather Ball died the widow-mother of  Lydia and Deborah married a Mr. Alexander, by whom she had at least one daughter, named  Sarah, born about 1763.  This chid grew up an intelligent woman, highly educated, and on Oct. 3, 1784 married  Christopher Raymond Perry, a celebrated  Naval Officer in the War of the Revolution.
          In all the terrible efforts to repel the English invaders from our soil, Grandfather Smith, with his two brothers-in-law, Gabriel Wright and Christopher  Perry, sustained an honorable part.  Smith and Wright first in the Boston and Massachusetts campaign of 1775 and during 1776 and 1777 in those bands of "jersey Blues"**  which aided Washington with his regular troops so materially in holding the British in check and finally driving them out of the country, and thus relieving the inhabitants of New Jersey of their lawless infaism.  While Perry with his little war sloop on the sea was no less successful in cutting out many a vessel laden with supplies for the enemy, by which ammunition, clothing, etc., were obtained for the American Armies.
          Ann (or Nancy) Smith  was the first born of the children of Lydia (Ball) Smith and David Smith.  Lydia Ball and David Smith were married 1762-63, and Ann was born about 1764, as she was said to be about fourteen when her parents moved in Virginia.
          Gabriel Wright came with Grandfather Smith and many of their neighbors to Virginia in the spring of 1778 and settled in Rockingham County, where he lived for a few years.  From there in 1792 he came with his family to Ross County, Ohio.  In 1805 David Smith and family moved to Green County, Ohio, where after a few years the wife became almost a helpless invalid and in 1815 she died at about seventy years of age.  She was laid to rest in what is now known as the Latman Cemetery, located perhaps a half mile northwest of the villiage of Fairfield, Green County, Ohio.  In 1825-26 David Smith came to Shelby County, Indiana, where he made his home with the children of his daughter, Ann (Smith) Sleeth.  In December, 1835, at the age of ninety-three years, he died and was buried by the side of his daughter in the cemetery at Marion, about six miles from Shelbyville."
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        ** David Smith accepted as "Patriot" under this account of his service in  the Hacker Record.

Four Revolutionary Soldiers and Their Descendants:  Alexander Sleeth, Gabriel Wright, David Smith, John Hacker,  pgs 15-17,  by Eloise M. Roberts, Avard, Oklahoma, 1924
Contributed by Judi Pegg

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