The following story was among the papers sent to my by my cousin-in-law in Freetown, IN, Phyllis Loper.

After a most pleasant reunion of the SMITH-WHEELER families at Freetown on Sunday, Jul 27, at which it was stated during the program given in the afternoon, that the president J.[ames] B.[laine] Smith in company with Robert Smith would take a day off in which a search would be made to locate the burial place of some of our ancestors, particularly that of Isaac (?) Smith, great-grandfather of the two undertaking the search.

The search embraced cemeteries in two counties, and an interview with Mr. Levi Bridgewaters at his residence in Bartholomew county. The trip was made on July 29, 1941.

It was a warm day, and we found Mr. Bridgewaters, a hale old gentleman of seventy-eight years, sitting on the front porch of his residence in old Mt. Healthy. When in conversation with him we complimented him on his apparent health of mind and body, he commented that it was a simple matter with him as had access to “The Fountain of Youth” – in fact was the owner of it. When we expressed an interest in this heretofore mythical fountain, he led us a short distance to the foot of the hill on the road to Columbus where was a cement house in which was a pump that yielded an excellent mineral water of which we drank freely.

Mr. Bridgewaters is an affable gentleman, free to answer our questions, and to volunteer information concerning our family, some of which surprised us very much as it was not known before. Mr. B was speaking from the vantage point of being the grandson of Joseph Bridgewaters, the second husband [of] great-grandmother Smith whose first husband was our great-grandfather, whose name [was] supposed to be “Isaac” Smith. To establish the certainty that “Isaac” was his christian name was one of the objects of our search.

In answer to the first question[1], he stated that the maiden name of our great-grandmother was Nancy White. He then volunteered the statement that she had a sister “Ibby” White, who married James White. (When asked whether this was “Kentucky Jim” of whom I had heard my father, James W. Smith speak, he was unable to say.) One of the sons born to Ibby and James White, he stated, was Coleman White; that this Coleman White married Mary (Polly) Smith, his cousin[2]. He stated that Great-Grandmother Smith-Bridgewaters was buried in a burying ground at Buffalo, Brown Co. which statement proved to be erroneous[3]. He stated that one of her sons, Isaac Smith[4], was killed in the Civil War; that Belle (White) Smith [5], his widow, married one Sam Kline[6]. (I have spelled the name phonetically: it may be [spelled] quite differently.) He also stated that our great-uncle, Thomas Smith, married in Brown County, a daughter of William Holmes[7]. Another statement was that Joseph Marion Smith, who was a son of Great-Uncle William Smith[8], married a Miss Romine, daughter of Steve Romine. He said, “I lived for a time in J. Marion Smith’s home near Arcola, Ill., and near Tuscola, Ill.”

[1] a written note on the document I have says “This is where the “White” get started, alluding to the incorrectly dispersed name of Nancy Hendricks Smith Bridgewater[s].
[2] I believe the kinship is via the Coonrod Hendricks m. Julia Ann Rice family. Need to prove it out.
[3] In hindsight, Mr. Levi Bridgewaters was spot on. I will omit the details why until the end of the story.
[4] Isaac Smith “Jr.” died after 1863.
[5] Isabell White married Isaac Smith “Jr.” 9 Oct 1858.
[6] Per her obit, a daughter of “Mrs. Isabell Cline” married John Goley. Her son James T. Smith lived in Sanford, IL.
[7] Thomas J. Smith married Catherine Holmes. Thomas Smith and Thomas Hill were among the first Smiths to migrate to southern Illinois.
[8] I’m not sure who this was. William B. Smith, brother to James W. and Isaac S. Smith, married Sarah Adaline Spurgeon. Samuel R. Smith did have a brother William, however. He married an Elizabeth White 20 Jun 1830 in Lawrence Co, IN. I’m not sure what family is being discussed here.

The statement by Mr. Bridgewater that both surprised and enchanted us was that Isaac and Nancy Smith had a daughter named Elizabeth, who became the child wife of Frederick Waggoner; that Elizabeth died at the age of seventeen, leaving a daughter, Judy Ann, who married Isaac Jones. Neither Cousin Jim [9] nor I had known that we possessed this great aunt and this cousin (cousin, once removed).

[9] James B. Smith, son of Isaac S. Smith, son of Samuel R. Smith

When in almost midafternoon, we had thanked Mr. Bridgewaters for his courtesy and bidden him good-bye, Cousin James drove to the Christianburg Cemetery, the cemetery in which he had expressed himself as being most confident great-grandfather’s grave would be found, if found at all. But a careful search did not reveal it. In this cemetery, however, we viewed a rather large monument marked: -Daniel Webseter Berry – 1859 – 1921; Sarah Adaline Berry – 1860 – 1925. (Also we noted one: Amos W. Carmichael – 1832 – 1907. and Peter Greathouse – 1837 – 1906). From here we drove to Buffalo Cemetery, a cemetery overgrown with weeds and briers. Here we noted a gravestone: -Mary, wife of W.B. Holmes, Died Mch, 1, 1852, age 38 years. Also in the graveyard was a tombstone, Marked, Martha A. Holmes, Died 1832.

In rather drooping spirits, we drove to the Urmy (?) cemetery, or Lutes Cemetery as it is not generally called, which we regarded as a forlorn hope.

But the “hope that springs eternal,” urged us on. We had entered this somewhat unkempt “city of the dead,” from the west, and had gone only a few paces into it, when Cousin Jim, stooping low before a native sandstone grave marker, called me. With pencil and note-book in hand, I was soon stooping with him, my gaze directed with his through the parted weeds before the stone. There, legibly scratched on the stone were the words: –

IN MEMERY
OF
IAASC SMITH
DIED 1852.

The crude lettering and the evidence illiteracy of the one whose hand had traced the record [did not disturb the] but expressed my incredulity in the words: “Maybe this is not the grave of our ancestor after all; there are so many Smiths.” But Cousin Jim did not manifest any doubts; he was exultant; and my skepticism was joyously dispelled when on a near-by stone – a marble slab – the product of one adept in such work – we read:-

NANCY
Wife of
ISAAC SMITH
and of JOSEPH BRIDGEWATERS
Died
Dec. 10, 1876, Aged
82 years, 11 mos., 13 da.

And in confirmation of what Mr. Bridgewaters had told us, we read on another tombstone: –

ELIZABETH
Consort of
FREDERIC WAGGONER
Who died Dec. 24, 1845
In her 17th Year.

A little farther away was a rather neat stone marked: –

JUDY ANN JONES
Daughter of
F&E WAGGONER [Frederic and Elizabeth]
Born 1845 – Died 1868
Aged 23 years.

Near Judy Ann’s grave was Isaac Jones’s grave with a stone marked: –

ISAAC JONES
Born
June 15, 1832
Died
Dec.12, 1895.

The story of Elizabeth Smith Waggoner as told by Mr. Bridgewaters concerning Elizabeth Smith Waggoner, and her daughter, Judy Ann, was corroborated by Mrs. Lafe McKain, who being a half-sister of Judy Ann, could dwell upon and enlarge the story. She related that Judy Ann’s marriage to Mr. Jones was an unhappy union that resulted in her death at the age of twenty-three; that afterwards Jones married Miss Mahala Miller.

The following day, July 30, Cousin James and I made another trip to the Lutes Cemetery, this time having a camera with which [I] took some snapshots in the cemetery. On this visit, we noted a stone that was marked: –

Elizabeth Smith
wife of
William Smith
Born June 30, 1808
Died Jan. 14, 1846

And another marble slab that had falled down was marked: –

Abram Smith
Born
Apr. 19, 1837
Died
June 23, 1862

Directly after my arrival at Freetown, a few days before the Smith-Wheeler Family Reunion, on July 27, I heard the story that “Little Jim”, as he was familiarly spoken of to distinguish him from another “James” in the family, had met death by his own hand, more than a decade ago at his place of residence in Illinois. Mrs. Cora George, widow of Cousin A. Jeff. George, told the story as told to her by a Mrs. Greathouse who lives on the creed on State Route 135, south of the White Schoolhouse. As Cousin Jim and I were on our return home from the trip to the cemeteries on July 29, 1941, we stopped at the Greathouse home, to find Mrs. [?] at the back of the house with a milk pail in her hand, it being evening chore time. When interrogated about the story, she repeated the story as Mrs. George had related it, which was that “Little Jim” lived near them in the country near Stanford, Ill., and that the community was stirred by the tragedy of his killing his wife while she slept and then killing himself. I think she said a revolver was used. He left a note, Mrs. G said, explaining that he killed his wife because he did not wish her ever to be in want. This was about the year 1932 Mrs. G. thought; and she also said that “Little Jim” had come there from Warren County, Ind.

Not only the foregoing story, but much more of what I learned was a revelation to me and there is much more to be revealed. Even those from whom we sought information, who kindly gave us much, can no doubt give more. The mind becomes pregnant with interrogations. Where was Isaac Smith, our oldest known ancestor born and his sire? Someone told me many years ago that the Smiths were immigrants from the South. I shall not cease diligently to search for historical facts regarding out Smith ancestors. It may be that a professional in tracing genealogies might now be profitably employed, if that be within our means. As long as I live, I shall not be satisfied with the meager knowledge we have of the origin of our branch of the Smiths. It freezes one’s soul to think of the record as forever sealed.

As we stood beside the graves of our people, in the silence of those eternal Salt Creek hills, we thought of the lines of the immortal Elegy in a Country Graveyard –

Oft did the harvest to their sickle yield.
Their furrow oft the stubborn glebe has broke;
How jocund did they drive their teams afield;
How bowed the woods beneath their sturdy stroke;

And looking on the crude but venerated stone at Grandfather’s grave, this from the same elegy, came, –

Their name, their years, spelt by th’ unlettered Muse,
The place of fame and elegy supply:
And many a holy text around she strews,
That teach the rustic moralist to die.

When again the Smith-Wheeler Reunion is held back in the homeland – the 1942 meeting being planned for Cami, Ill. – Cousin Jim and I have in mind as part of the program , a Pilgrimage, – a motorcade – to the Lutes Cemetery where is the grave of our oldest Smith ancestor and a number of our other relatives.

– By R. M. Smith

P.S. I am enclosing a snapshot of Grandfather’s gravestone and one- Elizabeth Smith Waggoner’s
– R. M. S.

P.S. 2nd . Uncle Hiram, you may find some glaring lack of knowledge of the family in this account, but it was a great satisfaction to me to get my mind straightened out on some things, that may seem simply to you. As Mrs. L. McKain said, “I knew where those graves were, and about most of what you have learned, all this time”, may be so with you. But I had not known them. Jim, however, was of the opinion Mrs. McKain knew only “after he had told her.” If there is anything you would like to add in the way of information I would be glad to have it. I mean to go ahead till I know all that I can learn about the family and complete the genealogy if possible. -R.