Jesse W. Smith, son of Peter Smith of Caswell County, North Carolina

Jesse W. Smith (son of Peter and Jemima Smith), born in 1785 in Caswell County, North Carolina.  In 1805, he was living in Henderson County, Kentucky.  Union County was formed from Henderson County in 1811, and very likely Jesse W. lived in that part which became Union County.

On June 20,1805, Jesse W. Smith, then of Henderson County, appointed his brother William Wigginton Smith, of Muhlenberg County, to act as his attorney “to ask, demand and sue for and recover of Richard Hornbuckle of the county of Caswell and the state of North Carolina, one of the executors of the last will and testament of Peter Smith, deceased (my father), all sums of money or property to which I am entitled as one of the heirs...of Peter Smith...or as one of the heirs of Elizabeth Smith, deceased, who was one of the heirs...of the said Peter Smith "

Jesse W. Smith would have been twenty years of age in 1805.  He probably married in that year and wished to come into his inheritance.

Deeds on record in Union County, Kentucky, state that he and his wife, Rebecca (said to be a native of North Carolina), sold land in Union County in the year 1821.  There were numerous other transactions in the years that followed.  Rebecca died before 1850, as the census report of that year gave Jesse W. Smith's wife as Mary J(ane); place of birth, Tennessee (in 1799 or 1800).  No children were then at home.

Jesse W. Smith was a farmer.  He and Rebecca were likely the parents of several children, but I can be certain of only three:

Mary Smith

Elias G. Smith

George Smith

In at least one of the land transactions recorded in 1838, Jesse W. Smith and his wife, Rebecca, and Elias G. Smith and Peter W. Smith sold 200 acres of land to Benjamin Bean. 

           

It seems logical to believe that Peter W. Smith was a son of Jesse W. and Rebecca.  He is not shown in the 1850 census for Union County, but a Peter W. Smith, age 32, was in Muhlenberg County in 1850.  One of his children was Jesse William Smith. 

There was in the Union County census for 1850 a family headed by John B. Smith, born 1810 or 1811 whose wife's name was Elizabeth. Among their children was a 3-year-old daughter named Rebecca.  The same census showed the family of Caswell Smith, age 42, whose wife was Pricilla.  I cannot help but wonder if these two men were sons of Jesse W. and Rebecca Smith.