Thomas Smith, jr

Thomas Smith, Jr., son of Thomas Smith (1677-1712) & his wife "Mary," was born about 1698 in Hopewell Twp, Hunterdon, New Jersey. He died in , Fairfax, Virginia.

Thomas married Ruth Stout, born about 1706 in England, about 1724 in Hopewell, Hunterdon, New Jersey.

They had the following children.

• M i Thomas Smith III was born about 1725. He died in 1754.
• M ii John Smith was born about 1730.
• M iii James Smith was born in 1732. He died on 15 May 1819.

  ---

notes

from http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.com/~smithhouse/smithgen/smithf...

"On September 29, 1748, THOMAS SMITH was at Newbern (then the Capital of North Carolina) with men from other western communities, petitioning the North Carolina Assembly to form Anson County, as they had to travel over a hundred miles in order to reach the Bladen Court House. The next day, September 30, 1748, THOMAS SMITH was appointed Justice of the Peace for Bladen County. [William L. Saunders, editor, NC Colonial Records, Vol IV: 189, 889]" (First Families of Jersey Settlement, by Ethel Stroupe 1996)

THOMAS SMITH of Hopewell, New Jersey, came to North Carolina about 1745 and was one of the first settlers at the Jersey Settlement in the Yadkin River Valley.

In the 1730s the New Jersey Supreme Court invalidated the deeds to thousands of acres of land in Hopewell, including land that THOMAS SMITH'S father had purchased as wilderness. THOMAS SMITH and his brother-in-law, John Parke, were vocal dissenters of the Hopewell land swindle and engaged in acts of civil disobedience. Along with other dissenters, THOMAS SMITH and John Parke fled New Jersey for the Shenandoah Valley before they could be prosecuted. Many of the franchised families of Hopewell came to Bladen County, North Carolina (later Anson County and later Rowan County) in the mid 1740s, forming a community that came to be known as the Jersey Settlement.

"The earliest families of Jersey Settlement came from Hopewell Township, Hunterdon County, New Jersey, where some had been members of Pennington's Presbyterian Church, and others were Quakers and Baptists who baptized their children in St. Mary's Episcopal church for practical, political reasons. The earliest families identified in Jersey Settlement circa 1745 were those of Jonathan Hunt, THOMAS SMITH, Robert Heaton, and John Titus." (First Families of Jersey Settlement, by Ethel Stroupe 1996)