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Posted by Diane Stefani --Previous Message--
on 11/10/2004, 2:19 am, in reply to "Grandfather Smeathers-A Man of Courage"
63.93.96.61
My 5X Grandfather was Edward Rawlings. Small world! I don't know much about him. Do you know if he served in the American Revolution and where the "Capt." came from? He married Rebecca VanMeter. One of their daughters (Ann) married Josiah Hart, an eventual Texas colonist in the Red River area. I believe Ann died in Ark. but have no way if knowing. I have read this story about your GGGG Grandfather before and found it interesting and amusing. Fair and square, he won hi freedom. Thanks for the story again. Diane Stefani
: My 4x grandfather was Williams Smeathers. On
: the Historical Marker in front of the
: Hartford Museum, KY, it says he was A Man of
: Courage.
: In a book "Law of the Heart" by
: Dorothy Gentry of Owensboro, KY, she mentions
: he was a 'Just & Honorable' man &
: believed in 'Playing a bad hand well",
: pertaining to Cards. Its said his cabin on
: the Ohio banks called Yellowbanks was an
: Ordinary for the Ohio rivermen &
: travelers & gamblers.
: I believe this. Although we have a difficult
: time proving his participation in the Rev.
: War, and his whereabouts prior to 1797, &
: the misspelling of his name Smeathers, this
: story below at least gives a picture of this
: grandfather whose blood still flows through
: our veins four generations later with honour,
: justice & courage.
: Thompson, Jess M. [View Citation]
: The Jess M. Thompson Pike County history : as
: printed in installments in the Pike County
: Republican, Pittsfield, Illinois, 1935-1939.
: Pittsfield, Ill.: Pike County Historical
: Society, 1967, 582 pgs chapter 129-Pike Co
: ILL pg 381
: Stephen Rawlings was a carpenter as well as a
: public official and as such he built the
: stocks and whipping post that stood on the
: county court house plot in early
: Elizabethtown. Stephen Rawlings had a son
: Edward [later Capt Edward Rawlings] who
: qualified in 1795 as deputy sheriff of Hardin
: county under Sheriff Samuel Haycraft.
: Sheriff Haycraft's son Samuel Haycraft Jr
: relates the following story of Deputy Sheriff
: Edward Rawlings in his "History of
: Elizabethtown"
: "He [Rawlings]was a slender, tall man,
: with but little surplus flesh, nearly all
: muscle, very active, and prided himself on
: his manhood and high sense of chivalric
: honor.
: "A warrant was placed in his hands to
: arrest 'Bill Smothers', who was a rollicking
: kind of outlaw, and frequently guilty of
: personal outrages. He infested the lower end
: of the county [now Daviess country, formerly
: a part of Hardin], abt 130 miles from the
: present court house. Rawlings, by stratagem
: and some help, arrested Smothers, tied him on
: a horse and started with him on the long
: journey to the jail. When on the road between
: Hartford and Hardin's Settlement, Smothers
: addressed Rawlings something after this
: manner: "Ned, I have heard of you, and
: that you boast yourself to be much of a man.
: Is it fair if you are a better man than me to
: keep me tied? I promise to go with you untied
: if you are the better man, and I prove to be
: the better man then let me go."
: "Rawlings was too high strung and
: chivalric to stand that. He immediately
: dismounted, untied his prisoner, and at it
: they went. They were well matched, and like
: James Fitz James and Rhoderic Dhu, without a
: spectator to behold the contest. Their brawny
: arms encircled each other and every power of
: muscle, sinew and bone was put in
: requisition. The contest was long and
: doubtful. But Smothers, being as accustomed
: to hardships and lying in the woods as the
: wild beasts, outwinded the Deputy and came
: off the victor, and accordingly went his way.
: Rawlings considered that the matter had been
: settled by the code of honor, fist and skull
: and was content with the issue. His fee in
: case of success would have been three
: shillings in tobacco at a penny ha-penny per
: pound."
: [I have NO idea what this last part really
: means...LOL-but this is interesting putting
: Smeathers in KY in 1795, I am assuming its
: KY, and NOT ILL, so another clue for us where
: he was earlier. And it is our Smeathers we
: know for sure, even though its written
: Smothers, so often Historians did that as
: well as prior researchers]
:
:
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