William Smeathers

William "Bill" Smeathers (c. 1767 – August 13, 1837), also known as Smithers or Smothers, was a pioneer settler of Kentucky and later Texas.

Early Life

The name of this remarkable pioneer has been variously spelled and pronounced, as Smeather, Smeathers, Smither, Smithers, Smothers, etc., but Smither was probably correct; and "Bill" is supposed, of course, to stand for William. The above is the name by which he was familiarly called. He was born on the western frontier of Virginia, near the Holston River. His father was a hunter, and frequently took his son with him to assist in bringing home the game. One morning he started at daylight, telling his wife that he would take a little round and be back to breakfast. As he did not return, a search was made for him. His body was found about two miles from home, nearly devoured by the wild beasts; but the narrow blade of an Indian tomahawk had been driven deep into his brain. His wife was so deeply affected by his death that she lived only nine days, and was placed in death where she had been in life—close by the side of her husband. William was so upset that he did not close his eyes in sleep during the night that followed her burial. Before day he went out, and standing by their graves, boy as he was, he raised his hand to Heaven and swore that he would devote his life to the destruction of the Indian race. And well did he keep that vow, for he never saw an Indian that he did not shoot at, and he very seldom missed his aim. He felt very conscientious about killing a squaw, and rejoiced that it was never his misfortune to meet with one.

William was twelve years old at the time of his parents' death. There were also two other children: James, aged nine, and Mollie, aged seven. One of the neighbors, a new-comer, having no place of his own, proposed to take care of these orphan children for the rent of the farm. This was agreed upon and he moved in. During that same year, William went to live with an uncle in Virginia, who agreed to give him a good education, and $100 in money when he became of age. This uncle, whose name was Chrisman, was a man who worshiped the rich and scorned the poor. He was so cruel and overbearing to his orphan nephew that the latter ran away from him in a few years. He wandered through the country, stopping wherever he could find anything to do, but found his stock of money was growing less and less every day. He was in a little town called Taylorville, near the Catawba River, when Colonel Shelby came through beating up for volunteers, and William joined him because he knew not what else to do. At that time the British had a military post on King's Mountain, so named from the fact that it stands alone, overlooking the country on all sides. It was at this point that the battle of King's Mountain was fought between the British and Colonel Shelby's men. The latter were successful, having killed Ferguson and a great many of his men, captured 1,000 prisoners, 2,000 muskets, and all their military stores, and lost very few of their own men.

After his discharge, William again wandered around the country until the following spring, when he was taken by a squad of men belonging to General Green's command, who had been sent out to press teamsters to drive the wagons. Although Smeathers was exempt from the duties of teamster, he was detained until after the battle of Guilford Court-House was fought, and was then discharged. After this he could find no employment and concluded to return to James River and visit his uncle and friends in that vicinity. But his uncle forgot to give him the $100, although he was twenty-one and had a very good education. He bade him good-bye, and started for his native town to visit his brother and sister. He found them still living with the man who had taken the farm. This man had a daughter whom Smothers courted one Sunday evening, and married the next Thursday. He was very anxious to proceed immediately to Kentucky, but his wife and sister insisted that the snow and ice on the mountains would endanger their lives; so the move was postponed until spring.

Arrival in Kentucky

On his arrival in Kentucky, he found the region around Lexington more densely settled than the country he had left on the Holston. He had come to fight the Indians, and did not feel like taking wages as a hand on a farm. He met a party who were coming down to fortify in the Green River country, and joined them at once. They built a fort at Hartford, on Rough Creek. When they were besieged they found that the Indians generally came from lower Kentucky, wading Green River at the falls. They established a fort there and called it Vienna. At first, of course, it was only a fort; afterward a town was laid out there and it was named Vienna. It is now called Calhoun. The father of William and Thomas Downs, a Baptist preacher, was the last man killed by the Indians here, which was between 1790-92, within a few hundred yards of the fort. The section of the country about Vienna was settled up fully ten years before Bill Smeathers came to Owensboro; the Indians seldom came in great force afterward, and they soon scattered. Mrs. Smothers lived only a few years after moving to Kentucky, and died, leaving two daughters and one son. Miss Mollie Smothers remained with her brother many years.

Settling at Yellow Banks

Smeathers, not liking the dense settlements around Hartford and Vienna, came to the Yellow Banks and built a cabin on the banks of the Ohio. This was about the beginning of the present century. The cabin was of round logs and had two doors; from one he had a view of the Ohio, and from the other he looked into his garden. On the lower side of the house there was a shed-room, which was made by extending the main roof, being enclosed by slabs of timber planted in the ground. About four feet of a single log was cut out to make a passway into the room. In it he deposited his peltries and groceries, and when he entertained a large company, which was frequently the case, it was converted into a bed-chamber, more agreeable in cold than warm weather, owing to the abundance of deer and bear skins and buffalo robes which were kept there.

Nature had been liberal in her gifts to Smeathers. In personal courage he was inferior to no man, and he was endowed with a good understanding. The operations of his mind were quick, and there was a sprightliness and point in his conceptions which never failed to interest the listener. In conversation, he rarely descended to vulgarity, and never affected the coarse manner or rude speech of the ruffian. His voice, like his mind, was clear and distinct; and if he had received a thorough education he would have been a shining light in the land. But his love of fun was his controlling passion, and led him into many improprieties and may have clouded his memory with crime. In person, he was five feet eleven inches high; his hair and beard were dark brown; his eyes were prominent and a clear, deep blue ; his complexion was fair; and the expression of his countenance was playful and intelligent. Whatever he did seemed to be performed deliberately. He spoke the truth, except when he was planning some mischief, and then his fertile imagination readily invented whatever was necessary to the success of his scheme. On these occasions he could invent the most marvelous and miraculous lies, giving all the particulars and attendant circumstances. Incredulity itself would be silenced by his earnestness of tone and his minuteness of detail.

Smothers was delighted with his new home at the Yellow Banks. He was in search of a good hunting-ground for himself, and good range for his horse and cow; and in these respects his situation could not have been improved. From Panther Creek to the Ohio River, and from Green River to Blackford, he was the only inhabitant. He roamed the forest alone and slaughtered the game at pleasure. The necessaries and even the luxuries of life were furnished to him at his very door. The barges, as they were slowly cordelled by their armed crews, would stop and give him salt, flour and groceries, in exchange for dried venison, bear-meat and buffalo robes. No man below the falls could furnish so sumptuous a meal, and no man ever entertained with more genuine hospitality. The visitors had a general partiality for "old rye" and "flour bread," as these articles were unknown in the interior. At the conclusion of one of his repasts, a man called "Leather-legs" wiped his mouth on the skirt of his hunting shirt, and remarked: "Smothers, I believe I will pull up stakes where I am, and come down here." This observation cast a shade over the countenance of Smeathers, but he quickly replied, assuring his friend that the unhealthfulness of the climate would greatly endanger his life; "and besides," said Smothers, "I intend paying you a visit on Pond River, and taking a long tramp in the hills; I like to hunt in the hills; the water is so much better than it is in the bottoms, and then you are clear of the black gnats, mosquitoes and gallinippers that swarm in these flats." "Stop, Smeathers," said Leather-legs, "you are taking a great deal of pains to tell me that you don't want me here. I won't come; if I break up I will go to the mouth of the Wolf, or to the Red Banks." "Well, then," said Smeathers, "we will be neighbors, and I will call and see you at either point."

Reaction to Additional Settlement

The remark of Leather-legs made a deep impression upon the mind of Smeathers. It proved to him that others were at least thinking of intruding themselves into the small boundaries which he had assigned to himself; that the 150,000 acres of land which he had enjoyed as a hunting-ground would be occupied by other men; that settlements would be made, farms opened, and the game driven away or destroyed, and that he would be left in his old age without the means of support, in the country from which he had expelled the Indians. He did not spend his time in gloomy despondency, but, like a true man, resolved to make every effort to avert the awful train of calamities which he saw at no great distance before him. A surveyor's chain he regarded with particular abhorrence, and, if opportunity presented, he would place it where it would never be stretched again; corner trees, he thought, ought not to stand, as they would be the starting points for subdivision. It will not be stated that he ever cut one, but many were missing. He determined also that his house should present fewer attractions. His table, instead of luxuries, was supplied with the simplest and coarsest fare of the hunter. He almost deserted his home, wandering weeks and months together in the woods. He hunted deer and bear on this side of the river, killing as many as he wished, and twice a year he took an Indian hunt on the other side, where he was equally as successful. Sleepless days and nights would be spent to get a shot; and at every crack of his rifle an Indian fell.

The melancholy and dreadful news, against which he would have gladly closed his ears, at last saluted Smeathers, that at least twenty families had arrived upon his territory, and were then preparing to build houses and open plantations. The surveyor with his compass and chain was making new lines; the axe was busily plied in felling his trees; and the wedge lustily driven was riving his oaks. His lines had been broken and he was surrounded. In anguish and bitterness of spirit he contemplated his situation, and no ray of light broke through the dark cloud which enveloped him. At first he had almost resolved upon a hostile demonstration, but the number of the emigrants and the respectability of a portion of them, convinced him of the absolute folly and madness of such a course. Like all brave men, when fairly driven to the wall, he made up his mind to meet his fate with fortitude, and, making a virtue of necessity, he determined to cultivate the good opinion of the new comers by a friendly visit to them. Near Blackford he called upon Ely and Natty Bell. At the house of the latter he was agreeably surprised to find his brother James, who was laying siege to Bell's sister-in-law; she capitulated shortly afterward and they were married. In his circuit he saw Barker and Killenbarger, Holmark and Holinhead, Jones and Jordan, Glenn and Gentry, and on his return home he heard the axe of Felty Husk, who was cutting logs to build a house near the residence of Thomas H. Painter. Husk and Smothers afterward contracted a friendship which closed only with their lives.

Until this point, there had been no legal tribunals in this section, and might had generally constituted right. But Anthony Thompson was commissioned and qualified as a Justice of the Peace for Nelson County. He lived a few miles to the west of Vienna, and his district was about as large as six of our present counties. Thompson had a clear head, an iron will, and the kindliest feelings toward the whole human family. The uneasiness which Smeathers experienced at the appointment of a magistrate in such close proximity to himself gradually faded away. Five years of impunity convinced him that Squire Thompson was his friend; and although he had never seen him, he began to like the man, but rather preferred that Panther Creek should still continue to run between them. One day Thompson called upon Smeathers and they were so well pleased with one another that they became great friends. One sultry evening as the last rays of the setting sun were playing upon a bank of cloud, fringing its outline in purple and gold, Smeathers and his sister sat upon the doorsteps enjoying the cool air, and silently enjoying the splendors of the scene. Unnoticed by them, a keelboat had made fast at the landing, and several of the men were already in the yard. The foremost, a man by the name of Norris, was of Herculean proportions, and it was the boast of the crew that hee had never met a match in a fisticuff from Louisville to New Orleans. Miss Mollie left the side of her brother and entered the house. When they approached, Smeathers arose from his seat and invited them to walk in. They indulged themselves in such freedom of remark that Miss Mollie concluded she could not remain with propriety and ran to the house of Felty Husk. Smeathers, who had not observed the absence of his sister, remonstrated with them in mild but very decided terms upon their unbecoming and unworthy behavior. The firmness of his manner, and the truth of what he said, made an impression upon the boatmen. Six of the number upon leaving the house called to Norris to come and go to the boat. He told them to go on and that he would be along directly, but he never went. In the dim twilight Smothers saw ten or twelve of the crew ascending the bank in a line to his house. Retreating by the back door, he concealed himself in a bed of strawberries which grew in his garden. When they entered and beheld the lifeless body of their comrade and friend extended upon the floor, with the warm blood still trickling from two ghastly wounds, their rage and indignation knew no bounds. They threatened to hunt for Smeathers until they found him, and to slay him at sight. Perceiving that they were searching and ransacking the house, and expecting them in the garden, he left his hiding place and spent the night in the woods. At daylight the next morning he knocked at the door of Ben Duncan, Esq., who lived on Pup Creek, ten miles above Yellow Banks. He informed 'Squire Duncan of the nature of the charges which had been made against him on the night previous and demanded a judicial investigation. 'Squire Duncan summoned the boatmen as witnesses and opened his Court of Inquiry. In answer to the summons, the crew came in a body to the house of the justice. Many of them were armed, and declared it to be their intention to seize the prisoner and hang him to a tree. But the friends of Smeathers were there, and no man had more friends or truer friends than he had. They told the boatmen if they opened the ball in blood that the sun of that day would shine on many a corpse; that Smeathers had surrendered himself to the officers of the law and was a prisoner; that they could give their evidence if they had any, but if a hand was raised in violence they would resist it to the death. As they were prepared to make their words good the examination went on smoothly and quietly. The court decided that the offense was available, and required Smeathers to give bond and security for his appearance on the first day of the next term of the Ohio (now Daviess) Circuit Court. The bond was immediately filled by the prisoner and a number of securities, and after recognizing the witnesses the court adjourned. Smeathers, with six of his chosen friends, returned to his home. The boat was still at the landing, but the war was not renewed.

Smeathers was much perplexed in mind upon the subject of employing good counsel to argue his case before the Circuit Court. For all minor offenses he had appeared in his own behalf, and had been uniformly successful; but in a case which involved the question of his life or death, he was unwilling to trust himself. But he was poor, and lawyers' fees were high, and he knew not well what to do. His anxieties about the matter were happily relieved. The great advocate, Joseph H. Daveiss, knew Smeathers well, and admired him greatly for that indomitable courage which never had been known to quail in the presence of danger. He heard, at Frankfort, of the affair, and sent Smeathers a message which was characteristic of the man: "Don't ruin yourself hiring lawyers. I will be with you on the day of the trial." Smothers knew his man, and relied upon the promise with implicit confidence. The fame of Jo Daveiss as an orator and