Noah: you have been working overtime, thank you for this information... From: "Noah E. Smothers" <[email protected]> >I have been looking through the Reconstructed 1790 census for Kentucky, >Kentucky was formed from Virginia in 1792, so the first Kentucky census >was>actually in Virginia.>Looking through the Kentucky census index there >is no Smothers listed in>1790,(keeping in mind that indexs are not always >correct), however there is>Smithers and Smithy: It is very possible that >one of these is the William>(Bill) Smothers. > >First Census of Kentucky 1790 >Thos. Nelson Smithers, 11/22/1792 >Thos. Fayette Smithy, 2/26/1790 >William Fayette Smithy, 2/26/1790 >Robert Fayette Smither, 7/9/1789 >Robert Woodford Smither 5/27/1790 >Wm. Fayette Smither 7/9/1789 >Wm. Woodford Smither, 5/27/1790 > >Is either Wm. Fayette Smither or Wm. Woodford Smither the Bill Smothers >who>founded Owensboro Ky? >>>ALL I CAN really tell you is his name was >William [Bill] Smithers [Smothers]...there is a park now in Owensboro named >for him. I do not know his middle name or if he had one. If we could figure >out his parents, we might could come up with some middle name. From time to >time, we have thought it might be either Jacob or Archibald, as we find >that name often in his later sons and generations. It would seem that with the common middle name of >Fayette, or Woodford that these Smithers, Smithy's had to be related. I >wonder if the middle name is not LaFayette, that might lead to a French >connection? I searched the familysearch.com page and did not find anything >for any of these names. However I did not spend a lot of time looking >there.>If then we look at the 1800 Kentucky census for Ohio County, >Kentucky we>find: >Jacob Smothers >James Smothers[ this is probably Bill's brother] >John Smothers[this could be Bill's son, John Bates Smothers, sr] >James Smothers >John Smothers >William Smothers[probably Bill, as we know he was in Ohio Co at this time] > >It is possible that the Smothers were brothers in the Ohio county, >Census,[YES] >or sons of William (Bill) Smothers, we know that William Smothers is the >one>that went to Texas, did a Jacob, James or John Smothers also end up >in>Texas?[YES, Bill's son, John Bates Smothers did go to Tx too after 1820 >and he established himself in the Dewitt colony in Lavaca Co, >Tx....Archibald, John's son, also went to Tx to the Dewitt colony.] Does Jacob, James or John show up in the 1810 census for Ohio County, >Kentucky? In viewing the 1810 census I did not find any of the Smothers >there, it appears that they all had left Ohio County, Kentucky before >the>1810 census. [they went to Indiana...Bill supposedly m. in Indiana, had >3 more children, his wife died, then he went to Tx around 1821 or so to do >some scouting for Jim bowie...Archibald followed later, then Archie's dau, >Mary Jane Foster also came to Tx] The first Smothers I see in the Texas census is William >Smothers 1823, Riverbrassos, Texas, and no other until 1840, John and >William both in 1840, and William again in 1844 with lots more later.[YES, >this is true. We are pretty positive about their movements once they were >in Tx, too many folks recorded them. He was in Ft. Bend, helped establish >that Ft. there, then he also went to the Dewitt Colony, granted land in >1824 by the mexican govt...as did his son, John Bates..then Bill went back >to the Austin colony in Riverbrassos around Columbia where he eventually >died in 1837. > >I looked at the Indiana census and the earliest Smothers I find is Hugh >Smothers Sr., John Smothers, and Reuben Smothers in the 1830 census, no >Jacob, James or William. It is possible that Jacob James, and William >are>there as Smithers.[possibly, we have driven ourselves crazy trying to >figure this out!] James stayed in Ky...and used the name Smeathers, as are >all his descendants there presently. he never went to Tx. > >Just trying to find those exclusive connections.>>>>thank you for doing >this. I will send you the link for the Texas Handbook online, maybe you can >figure out something we can't>>>>>. >Noah Smothers 12/16/2000 > > > > > > >============================== >Create a FREE family website at MyFamily.com! >http://www.myfamily.com/banner.asp?ID=RWLIST2 > _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com