My Genealogy Hound

ROBERT McFARLAND SMITH (deceased) was born near Elizabeth, Pa., July 24, 1804, and was a son of Philip and Elenor Smith of Germantown, Pa. Philip was a son of Thomas and Elizabeth Smith, who came from Germany in 1750 and settled in “Upland,” now Germantown, Pa. Philip married Miss Elenor Fismire, of Germantown, Sept. 12, 1782. In 1783 or 1785, Philip, then a sturdy young farmer, and his wife, came hunting for themselves a home in the then western wilderness. After a long and toilsome journey they reached Elizabeth, then only a settlement with three or four dwellings, the principal one, that of Col. Stephen Bayard, being built of logs. Within less than a mile the newcomer built his first home. It was a one-room log cabin on the hill plantation, called “Salisbery,” which comprised three hundred acres bought from Joseph Carle in 1790. In 1798 he bought from Thomas Liming the plantation of 160 acres called Newry, nearer the Monongahela river. On this he built his house, containing one large room, second story, a hall and stone kitchen, a porch length of the front, a large barn and other outbuildings for a farmer’s use; part of the old barn is standing yet. These buildings were made of hewn logs. A few years afterward he weather-boarded his house, and it is said to have been the first weather-boarded house west of the Alleghany mountains. Often while engaged in this work he was obliged to take up the old musket which he had carried at Valley Forge and Trenton, in order to repel the attacks of Indians. A few years after his house was finished the first public worship ever held in that region was conducted there; and there, in the providence of God, was first organized the Old Stone M. E. Church of Elizabeth, which by his blessing has been the means of converting multitudes, who with Philip Smith have long since passed away. This church was dedicated to the worship of God in 1832, the stone to build the same having been donated by Philip Smith and taken from his old homestead.

Miss Elenor Fismire was born Sept. 11, 1765, in Germantown, Pa., a daughter of Christian and Martha Fismire. Elenor’s grandparents were Quakers, who came from Wales in 1682, being among the number of about two thousand colonists who founded Philadelphia. They had eleven children, seven of whom were born prior to 1800. Their names are Martha, Betsey, John, Elenor, Adam, Thomas, Nancy, James, Joseph, Robert and Margaret. The father of this family willed to his son Joseph the hill farm; Robert, the homestead, and to Margaret, the town property; all the rest of his children settled in the west and south. Philip Smith was owner of large tracts of land, which he sold and gave to his children. They also settled in the west and south, and almost every state in the Union can furnish a relative.

Robert McFarland Smith was married Aug. 12, 1828, to Caroline Black, of Monongahela City, in Washington county, then called Williamsport. Ten children were born to them: Mary Elenor, Eliza Jane, wife of William F. Curry; Hester Ann, wife of D. McIntosh; Wilson Speers, of Elizabeth, in the livery business; Ross Stokely, died Dec. 2, 1875, aged thirty-eight years and four days; Caroline Belividere, wife of John Finney, died March 8, 1867, aged twenty-eight years and seven days; Laura and Robert Sehon, who died in infancy, and Myra Dell, wife of James H. Christy, of Elizabeth.

Their father was born and reared on the old homestead, and died Jan. 27, 1881, in his seventy-seventh year; his widow died July 24, 1885, in her seventy-fifth year. In the family burial-ground, on a sunny spot overlooking the beautiful Monongahela, and in full view of the old homestead, rest the ashes of parents and children. Philip Smith, father of Robert, died June 23, 1842, aged eighty-eight years; Elenor, his wife, died Sept. 26, 1836, aged seventy-one years and fifteen days.

Robert followed farming, but in 1847 he bought the glasshouse property, and took an interest with his son Samuel in the manufacturing of glass, which proved a bad investment, as Samuel H. went to San Francisco with the Maryland Mining company in 1849, and died there among strangers, Jan. 13, 1850, aged nineteen years and thirty-two days. His brother, Wilson S., enlisted Sept. 4,1862, in Co. D, 14th P. C., Sheridan’s command, and was in the battles of Winchester, Fisher’s Hill, Mt. Jackson, White Sulphur Springs, Rocky Gap, Droop Mountain, Lewisburg, Snicker’s Gap, Leesburg and others, being honorably discharged at the expiration of his term of service.

Their daughter, Mary E., was twice married; first, Dec. 25, 1845, to William Christian Lorenz, by whom she had one son, Frederick Smith, who inherited a part of his father’s estate. This he willed to his mother, who is now the wife of William M. Grace, having been married to him March 22, 1859. The Lorenz homestead they now own and occupy. Her son, Frederick S. Lorenz, died Jan. 20, 1875. One child was born to Mr. and Mrs. Grace, Mary Frances, who died in infancy. William C. Lorenz, father of Frederick, died Feb. 29, 1853.