Richard Henderson: the authorship of the Cumberland
compact and the founding of Nashville
Publication date: 1916
Topics: Henderson,
Richard, 1735-1785
William
Bailey Smith was born in Prince William, VA in 1737; he is shown in the 1800 and
1810 census as living in Ohio County ; he died 19 Oct 1818 in Daviess County
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William Bailey Smith, Son of James Smith – By Pearl
O. Smith 1973
“William Bailey Smith had a varied and colorful
career. He was born in 1737 or 1738 (more likely the latter year) in Prince William
County , Virginia . After the formation of Fairfax County ,
in 1742, his father's home was in Fairfax
County Orange
County , North Carolina Caswell County was formed from Orange in 1777.
William Bailey Smith played an important part in the early
settlement of Kentucky .
He also served his country by aiding in the capture of Kaskaski in 1778.
Smith was described as "a tall, rollicking,
unstable bachelor, energetic and brave, but with quite a turn for embellishing
the facts."[1]
Smith's positive characteristics, together with the fact that he was
unmarried, seem to be those of one who might seek adventure in the settling of
a wilderness as the frontier moved westward.
The Spring of 1775 arrived, and with it the assertion of
American freedom. "The hour had struck for the permanent settlement
of Kentucky
and in widely separated regions the hearts of unconscious instruments of fate
had been fired for the work. But in no American colony was the interest
in that distant forest-land keener than in North Carolina
and in no place in North Carolina was it so
conspicuous as in the...little frontier settlement of Watauga in what is now East Tennessee .”[2]
Richard Henderson, on Christmas Day, had advertised for
settlers for Kentucky
lands about to be purchased. The "Great Grant" was signed March
17, 1775, and for merchandise valued at 10,000 pounds, Henderson and his
associates were declared owners of all the territory south of the Kentucky
River, which comprises more than one-half of the present State of Kentucky .[3]
The Cherokee Indians, on that date, deeded the land to Henderson and
Company. William Bailey Smith was among those who witnessed the
transaction.
When Henderson had somewhat
earlier become sure of his treaty, he had employed Daniel Boone to cut a
road to Kentucky .
Henderson and Boone had already agreed that the first settlement should
be made at the mouth of Otter Creek on the Kentucky River
(the settlement was later known as Boonesborough). Boone and 30 armed and
mounted axmen left on March 10, 1775, to open a trail to his destination 200
miles away.
On March 28, Henderson left
Watagua and started toward the land of his dreams. His expedition
included 40 mounted riflemen, quite a number of Negro slaves, 40 pack horses, a
train of wagons loaded with provisions, ammunition, material for making gun
powder, seed corn, garden seed, a drove of bees, etc. Henderson was accompanied by four other
members of his Company: his brother Samuel, John Luttrell, and the
Harts. William Bailey Smith went as surveyor.[4]
After establishment of Boonesborough, Captain William Bailey
Smith was one of the defenders of the fort against attacking Indians and
pursued the fleeing band. He was one of the rescuers of Jemima
Boone (Daniel's daughter) and the Callaway girls when they were captured
by Indians. At different times Boone, Smith, and Richard Callaway negotiated
with the Indians.
On December 7 an act was passed by the State Legislature of
Virginia creating the county of Kentucky out of the territory that was later to
become the State of Kentucky .
The new county included the Henderson
purchase, and the Proprietary Government of Transylvania ceased to exist.
Boonesborough was thus a wilderness settlement of the extremest western
county of the State of Virginia .[5]
On December 1, 1778, by way of compensation, the State of Virginia granted the Henderson Company 200,000 acres of
land below the mouth of Green River . The
present city and county
of Henderson
Corn raised in Boonesborough the previous year was a source
of profit to its inhabitants in the Spring of 1780, as there was an urgent
demand for grain. It was partly to secure a supply of corn that
"about the first of March brought back to the station once more the former
official head and de facto Governor of Transylvania Judge Richard
Henderson...He...was promoting the settlement of the Company's land on the
Lower Cumberland, which was within the supposed boundary of North Carolina . ...Breadstuff was badly
needed at half-starving French Lick, the future Nashville ,
the stock-aded nucleous of Henderson ’s
second colony. The corn was bought for $200.00 a bushel in Continental
currency and was shipped the entire distance by water in log perogues, which
made their long and crooked way down the Indian-haunted Kentucky
and Ohio and up the Cumberland to French Lick. The unique
little fleet was in charge of Major William Bailey Smith, whose connection with
Boonesborough now ceased...”[6]
No one knew at this time whether Virginia ’s
boundary line would strike the Mississippi
above or below the mouth of the Ohio and
"to settle doubt, that State and North
Carolina sent Commissioners to survey the line
westerly."[7]
Virginia Commissioners were Doctor Thomas Walker and Daniel
Smith; those of North Carolina
were Colonel Richard Henderson and William Bailey Smith. Their work,
however, was delayed by unprecedented cold weather during the winter of
1779-80. It was called the "hard winter" and long remembered as
one of great suffering.
George Rogers Clark, the western hero of the Revolution,
went to Kentucky
in 1772 as a surveyor. In time, he was among those who opposed Colonel
Richard Henderson's Proprietary Government at Transylvania .
Later, on receiving the Governor's instruction to proceed
with his plan, Clark chose the captains
and lieutenants for his expedition and began recruiting. His diary says:
[January 2] "Appointed W. B. Smith major. He
is to receive 200 men [on the Holston] and meet me in Kentucky the last of March."
"3. Advance Major Smith 150 pounds for said purpose.”[8]
These actions are on record in the Illinois
Historical Collection, V. 8, pp. 36-37, according to Temple Bodley
The territory that was referred to as the
"Northwest" is what now comprises the States of Illinois, Indiana , and Ohio .
The first part of Clark 's mission
was completed when he captured Kaskaskia on the night of July 4, 1778.
The American writer Winston Churchill gives a fascinating account of
that feat in his book The Crossing. Vincennes was taken the following year.
There are numerous published works on these expeditions and the
difficulties that followed for the reader who likes early American history.
The Virginia Magazine of History, V. 15, p. 88,
provides evidence that Smith gave military service in Kentucky prior to the "Northwest"
expedition: "1777, December 11. Smith, Captain William Bailey,
for pay for his Company of Kentucky Militia, p. Pay and Cert., 878. 7. 7."
William Bailey Smith "finally settled about 16
miles from the site of the present city of Henderson ,
Kentucky , on
a tract of land which he received from John Luttrell, of the Transylvania
Company, in payment for his services. His residence was near what
afterwards was known as 'Smith's Valley,' mouth of Green
River . ...”[9] He received a grant of 400
acres of land in Ohio County ,
Kentucky
William Bailey Smith died October 19, 1818, in Daviess County , Kentucky North Carolina .
Presley Smith, of Washington
County , Kentucky
There is a file of papers on this court suit in Circuit
Court Equity File Box No. 17, in the Daviess County Court House at Owensboro , Kentucky
Mentioned in papers pertaining to the suit were Nancy Smith
Boggess and her children, who are listed above; the children and heirs of
Peter Smith, who will be named later in this text. Since William Bailey
Smith and his nephew Moses F. Smith both lived in Daviess County ,
and nephews William W. and James S. Smith lived nearby in Muhlenberg County ,
it seems likely that they had more contact with him than did his brother Presley,
who lived at a considerably greater distance in Washington County
1]
Ranck, George W., Boonesborough, John P. Morton and Company, 1901, p. 12
[2] Ibid.,
p. 1
[3]
Ibid., p. 8
[4] Ibid.,
p. 12
[5] Ibid.,
p. 54
[6] Ibid.,
pp. 114-115
[7]
Bodley, Temple , History of Kentucky
[8]
Bodley, p. 151
[9]
Ranck, p. 115
[10] Register Kentucky State
