| Isaiah
Smith, Loyalist Emigrant from Brookhaven, LI, to
Smithtown, New Brunswich: NY Genealogical &
Biographical Record, Vol. 133, No. 1, Jan 2002,
John E. D'Anieri |
The
Two Benjamin Smiths of Ronkonkoma, LI, Theodore
M. Sanford III SCHS #262 |
William
"Wait" Smith |
| Arthur "The
Quaker" Smith Arthur Smith, Early Long Island Quaker - Osborn Shaw |
John Smith (1801- 1896)- From Ireland to NY City | Information
from
the Bible of Capt Oliver Smith of East Moriches of
the "Bull" Smith Line |
| John "Blue" Smith | Nicholas Seversmith (Smith) of Huntington | |
| John "Nan" Smith | Peter Smith of Jamaica - Off site link provided by Jean Hehn, Judy Tooman, and Sue Stine. | Genealogy
and
Reminiscences - William Smith and Family |
| John "Rock" Smith | Richard "Bull" Smith | John
"Rock" Smith's Descendants Unique Monument in Cedar Grove Cem., Patchogue |
| Raynor Rock Smith Hero Life Saver of the Wreck "Mexico" | William "Tangier" Smith | |
Upon this island, and especially in the central portions of it are very many families of the name Smith, and so numerous did they become at an early period of this settlement, that it was thought necessary to distinguish the various original families by some particular name. thus we have the Black Smiths; the Blue Smiths; the Bull Smiths; the Weight Smiths, and the Tangier Smiths.
Of the Rock Smiths there are two distinct families. One originally settled between Rockaway and Hempstead, some ten or fifteen years before the settlement of the first white inhabitant in Setauket, who derived their name from the contiguity to Rockaway. The other located themselves in Brookhaven and obtained their appellation from their ancestor erecting his dwelling against a large rock which still remains in the highway of that town.
The Blue Smiths were settled in Queens county and obtained their peculiar designation from a blue cloth coat worn by their ancestor; whether because a cloth coat was then an uncommon thing in the neighborhood, or that he always dressed in a coat of that color, does not appear.
The Bull Smiths of Suffolk County are the most numerous of all the families of the name of Smith upon this island. It is said there are now at least one thousand males of that branch on this island. The ancestor of this branch of the Smith family was Major Richard Smith who came from England to New England with his father Richard in the early part of the seventeenth century; and afterwards came to this island, and became the patentee of Smithtown. The sobriquet of this class of Smiths is said to have arisen from the circumstance of the ancestor having trained and used a Bull in place of a horse for riding.
The Weight Smiths derived their name from being possessed of the only set of scales and weights in the neighborhood of their residence, to which all the farmers of the country around resorted for the purpose of weighing anything they wished to sell or buy; at least so says the tradition.
The Tangier Smiths owe their origin to Colonel William Smith, who had been the English Governor of Tangier, in the reign of Charles the Second, and emigrated to this colony in the summer of the year 1686, where he settled in the town of Brookhaven on the Neck known as Little Neck and afterwards as Strong's Neck, which together with his other purchases, were erected into a manor by the name of St. George's Manor, by a patent granted to him in 1693, by Governor Fletcher. Most of the Tangier Smiths are now in that town, scattered through it from the north to the south side of the island. (Tangier, in Africa, was about that period an English colony, having come to the British Crown as part of the dowry of Queen Catherine of Portugal; and was, in 1683, abandoned by the English to the Moors, in consequence of the great expense and small value of the colony.)
These different appellations of the families of the Smiths became as firmly settled as if they were regular family names, so that when any inquiry was made of any person on the road, man, woman or child, for any particular Smith, they would at once ask whether he was of the Rock breed, or the Bull breed, etc. And if the person desiring the information could say which breed, he at once was told of his residence. In truth, there are so many of the same name in that most numerous family of the Smiths upon this island, that without adopting some such plan it would be almost impossible to distinguish one from the other.
Additional Smith Information available on Long Island Genealogy
1.
Obituary
of John
Allen
"Blue"
Smith of Freeport ,02/23/1917 (The
Eagle)
 John Allen "Blue" Smith  The Mineola Court House being
dedicated in 1900 by the then Gov.
Theodore Roosevelt, Charles Smith
and John A. Smith were on the dais during this
event (circled in Red). Submitted
by the granddaughter of Charles Smith and
great-granddaughter John A. Smith, Mary
Jane Denton who has the photo in her
living room.
|
| 2. Genealogy of Mary (Brush) Smith |
|
3. Complete 42 page text of
- Raynor Family History by
Clinton E. Metz - Contains a
wealth of Rock Smith Information
|
James Clinch Smith descendant of
John "Bull" Smith, of Saint James, died in the sinking of
the Titanic
Mr
James
Clinch
Smith, 56, was born on 3 April 1856. A resident of St James,
Long Island, New York, Mr Smith boarded the Titanic at
Cherbourg as a first class passenger (17764, £30 13s 11d).
He occupied cabin A-7.
Smith
was a lieutenant in the Third Cavalry, United States Army
and the brother of Bessie Smith White of Smithtown, Long
Island, New York. Bessie Smith White was the wife of
architect Stanford White. White was murdered in June 1906 by
Harry Thaw then recently married to White's mistress of five
years, Evelyn Nesbit. James Clinch Smith was a witness to
the event.
James
Clinch Smith died in the sinking. His body, if recovered,
was never identified.
Information came
from the Encyclopedia Titanica: First Class Passenger:
James Clinch Smith
http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/bio/p/1st/smith_jc.shtml
Information on the
descendants of Jared Woolley was provided by Karen.
Please
contact
her if you are researching this line or need additional
information.
