William Smeathers is believed to have been born in either Pennsylvania, Virginia or North Carolina.
12 Facts About William Smeathers
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When Smeathers was 12 his father was killed by Indians and his mother died shortly thereafter, leaving young Smeathers to tend to his younger brother James and sister Mollie.
3.
William Smeathers was married twice, the second time to Mary Winters of Tennessee.
4.
William Smeathers had two sons, John and Archibald, and four daughters.
5.
William Smeathers was an early settler of Fort Hartford, and he helped to build a fort at Vienna on the Green River in the early 1780s.
6.
William Smeathers served on first grand jury of Court of Quarter Sessions at Hartford, 1803.
7.
William Smeathers was acquitted but was advised to leave the area temporarily for his own safety.
8.
William Smeathers served in the Kentucky "Corn Stalk" militia in 1803, and he served in the War of 1812 as a captain in the Kentucky Mounted Spies under the command of Major Toussaint Dubois.
9.
William Smeathers reportedly visited Texas in 1810, and at some point he seems to have lived in Indiana.
10.
William Smeathers eventually relocated to Texas, and in 1821 he helped Stephen F Austin explore the coast to choose a location for Austin's first colony.
11.
William Smeathers is listed as one of the Old Three Hundred, original settlers in Austin's colony along the Brazos River in Mexican Texas, the first of many Americans to settle in Texas with the permission of the Mexican government.
12.
William Smeathers died in Columbia, Texas, on August 13,1837.