Person:John Smith (427)

John had excellent eyesight, and was a crack shot with a rifle. Joe Hager said that if John needed to kill three squirrels with his Hawken Rifle he would only take three shots with him. He was known as a serious man of few words and was very kind. John and Victoria moved to Lincoln County around 1897 after Gilbert Hager offered him a job. Victoria's uncle James Sperry had moved to near Nine Mile Creek earlier, which is most likely how Gilbert knew of John Smith. Charlie Shelton Jr. (son of Susie Smith) relates their family story that "John and Victoria had settled on Indian lands in Kentucky, and later moved to Lincoln to escape carpetbaggers."

Life was rough in Eastern Kentucky during a time of lawlessness after the Civil War. In 1879 a gang of vigilantees, known as the "Regulators," roamed and terrorized Lawrence and neighboring counties. In 1881 most of the Regulators had disbanded and been given clemency, but there were remained problems including a particularly bad feud between some relatives of John Smith and some families who had been associated with the Regulators. This feud didn't end until 1916 when Mitchell Stewart, a ninety year old cousin of John Smith who had made it his personal duty to find and kill Regulators, was clubbed to death in his sleep. His two murderers were killed shortly later in revenge. Many members of the family had moved away to West Virginia or other areas of Kentucky to escape the violence during the late 1890's and early 1900's.

Also, in the 1890's the American Tobacco Company had a monopoly on buying tobacco and was depressing prices, making it very hard to make a living as a tobacco farmer. This led to the 1904 "Black Patch War" in western Kentucky and Tennessee that saw the murder of some tobacco farmers.

John Smith had already moved to Lincoln County in 1897, but then he apparently convinced some seven to nine more allied families to move from Lawrence to Lincoln around at the time of the Black Patch War (various White, Bellomy, Burton, Van Horn, Wallace, Brooks, and O'Daniel families who all had Unionist ancestors, mostly in the 14th Kentucky).

John and Victoria clearly had a strong and loving home based on the close relationships all their children had their whole lives. John and Victoria also helped raise many of their grandchildren. For example, Joe Hager (son of Gilbert Hager and Sarah Smith) lived with John and Victoria in Lincoln County for a couple of years in the 1920's while Gilbert was doing road construction. Joe attended school while he was there, and his teacher was Ed Adkins, husband of Sid Smith. Their grandson Mitchell Hager (son of Sarah Smith and her first husband Frank Hager) also lived with John and Victoria after his father, Frank Hager, died.

1. ↑ US Census - 1900 (United States of America)
   Lincoln County, West Virginia.
2. ↑ West Virginia Vital Research Records
   "John Smith".
3. ↑ West Virginia Vital Research Records
   "John Smith".