Who was Thomas Hilliary Smith?

Thomas H Smith was a....

Cheating, lying, horny toaded goat, mean, old man who ran off and left his first wife, Agnes Arnold Smith, with a bunch of kids to support by herself.  He supposedly married a younger woman, but proof of the marriage has never been found.  Oh, and he was my second Great Grandpa from my Mother's side.

Thomas and Agnes came from Missouri into Arkansas. They had ten children together.
1) Christoper Columbus Smith (1842-1898) married 1) Martha Nix, 2) Martha Harger, and 3rd) Rachel McGraw. 16 children altogether.
2) Mary C Smith (1844-?) married James Marsh
3) Malinda Frances Smith (1845-?) married Abraham Eukley
4) Della Agnes Smith (1847-?)
5) Martha Jane Smith (1849-1921) married Zedoc Stutchman, 8 children.
6) Larkin Robert Smith (1851-1913) married 1) Margaret Ross, 2) Mary Chastian. 10 children altogether.
7) Charles B Smith (1852-?) married Sarah Fletcher
8) John Thomas Smith (1853-?) married Elizabeth Hobbs
9) Prudence Agnes Smith(1857-?)
10) David Elijah Smith (1859-1933) married 1) CJ Long, 2) Margaret McGill. 7 children with Margaret.

Larkin and John both were born in Missouri in 1852 and 1853 according to the 1860 census.  Charles B was born in 1855 in Arkansas according to the Census record.  I am not really sure which year is correct for Larkin, John and Charles (Charles was also called Black), but apparently, the family lived for three to four years in Missouri before moving to Arkansas.

David Elijah Smith who shows up as number ten on the list was my Great Grandfather and Margaret (Tenny) McGill was my Great Grandmother.  David and CJ Long did not have any children.

On the 1870 census, Agnes is listed as head of household. On the 1880 census, Agnes' marital status is listed as widowed.

On the records for Thomas, people had listed his death date as 1860 and his death place as Arkansas.  I guess it was because he was last listed in the census records in 1860 in Arkansas.  In more recent years, his descendants have looked for his grave but, of course they never found one since the information they had to go on was false.

There have been some rumors about what may have happened to Thomas but, we didn't know if any of it was true or not.  One of the rumors was that a couple of Agnes' brothers hunted him down and killed him for leaving Agnes and fooling around on her.  Another rumor was that either a couple of her brothers or a couple of their sons hunted him down and found him living with an Indian woman.  They tried to get him to come home and he refused.

In any case, it sounds like the family new that 'ole Thomas wasn't dead but waited for twenty years after he left before listing Agnes as a widow on the census records.

All of this time though, his descendants didn't know what had happened to him, until....

I matched up with a fourth cousin through my DNA on ancestry dot com.  This fourth cousin claimed that her second Great Grandpa was Thomas Hilliary Smith but, this Thomas had a different wife.  His wife's name was Minerva Catherine Buck Smith. 

Apparently, Minerva was a widow who lived either in the same county as Thomas and Agnes or the county next to them.  She had a couple of children from her previous marriage.

Here is a photo of Thomas H Smith with his second wife and several of their children.  One thing we do know for sure about Thomas is that he was very prolific!  He and Minerva had another nine kids.

Not only did my new fourth Smith cousin match my DNA but, she also matches with several other Smith cousins from Thomas H Smith's first Smith family.  Oh Yes!  We always need more Smiths don't we....Lol.  Thomas sure did his part in supplying the world with Smiths.  One thing we know is that DNA Does Not lie even though 'ole Thomas did.

Thomas told Agnes that he was born in 1820 and told Minerva that he was born in 1812.  We know he died in 1897 in Cooke County, Texas and we know about where he is buried.  I am tempted to dig him up and do some DNA testing on him but, I guess I will just have to be satisfied with DNA test results from his descendants.

I have heard stories from his second family of descendants that tell how mean he was, how he took what he wanted, but he could also be quite charming.  Thomas was a Hell Raiser for sure!

If the research done by others is true, he came from a well to do, well respected military family that emigrated from England to Virginia in the 1600s.

One thing I can say about my Smiths is that they were a lively bunch!  More to come on Thomas and other Smiths later.