Person:Thomas Smith (427)

Working Timeline (sources/citations needed)

May 1768 - mentioned in Diary of George Washington:

• 22 May 1768 - "Went to church at Nominy [sic] and returned to Mr. Booth's to dinner. Mr. Smith, the Parson, dined with us."
• 23 May 1768 - "At Mr. Booth's all day with Rev'd Mr. Smith."

23 May 1775 - Committee of Safety of Westmoreland County meets at the Court House with the Rev. Thomas Smith, Chairman, and fifteen other members of the said Committee put into writing the five resolutions called "The Westmoreland County Resolves"

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Will Abstract, in Source Needed.

   [cos1776 Note: supposedly recorded in James City County. Verification needed.]
   
   THOMAS SMITH, Rector of Cople, Westmoreland Co., 10 Dec. 1788; 27 Oct. 1789.
   Sons Thomas Gregory and John Augustine;
   wife Mary;
   daus. Sarah and Mary;
   godson Baldwin Mathews.
   Exrs: wife, brother Col. Gregory Smith, Philip Lee
   Wit: Mary Smith, Elizabeth Buckner, Richard Buckner, Henry Tapscott, Martin Tapscott.

2.   Pecquet du Bellet, Louise. Some prominent Virginia families. (Lynchburg, Virginia: J.P. Bell Company, 1907)
   4:81.

   ... IV. Rev. Thomas Smith⁴ (Gregory³, Thomas², John¹), son of George Smith and Lucy Cooke, his wife; b. 1739 ; d. 1789.
   Rector of Nomini Church, Cople Parish, Westmoreland Co., Va., from 1765-1789.
   Married (1765) Mary Smith, b. 1744; d. 1791, daughter of John Smith, of Shooter's Hill, and Mary Jaquelin.
   
   At one time, during the residence of his family at the rectory, attached to this old church, there came an alarm that the British ships were coming up the Potomac River. The rector ordered everything that could be hastily collected to be put into a wagon to be driven off to a place of security. As the servants were engaged in loading up the wagon, the oxen moved one of the wheels against a plank on which a line of beehives was standing. The plank was upset and the hives thrown to the ground. The bees flew in every direction, stinging every living thing within reach. The family and servants fled into the house. They were obliged to stuff even the keyholes to keep out the infuriated bees. The oxen ran entirely away and the fowls, which were in the wagon, were stung to death.
   
   Rev. Thomas Smith d. May, 1789. His wife d. December 14, 1791.
   In October, 1791, their daughter, Sarah, in her seventeenth year was married to Benjamin Dabney. He was a widower with three children, though but twenty-seven years old. Sarah's stepdaughter, Ann, afterward married her brother, Major Thomas Smith, b. January 17, 1778. ...