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Friday, December 13, 2024 - 06:20 AM

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

First Published in 1994

INDEPENDENT CONSERVATIVE VOICE OF
UPSTATE SOUTH CAROLINA

Mike Barnes & Tim Drake with gravestone of Mary Smith (Mike in blue outfit)There is a small hill off Serena Circle near Broadway Lake in Anderson County which holds the remainder of the old Broadaway Presbyterian Church cemetery.  Only two markers remain, those of Mary Smith and John George. The cemetery is marked on the 1877 map of Anderson Co.  Residents of Serena Circle remember that in the 1960’s and 1970’s, there were several field stones that were removed from the location when houses were built on the property.  Mrs. Smith’s marker is a crudely carven sentence - - - “ Here lies the body of Mary Smith, heroine of American Revolutionary, who died August 17th 1829, age 92 .  The markers are 1820's, and hand carved from soapstone, probably hewn from a local quarry and engraved by a local tombstone carver of the period. They are beautiful works of carving, and approximately four inches thick and five feet tall (about two feet of each were placed underground to keep them upright). Mr. Barnes, Dr. Drake, & the ladies of the Hudson Berry DAR plan to put a period-appropriate wooden picket fence around them to protect the site from animals and (hopefully) vandals. Mary Smith died in 1826 at 92 years of age! The markers are in remarkable condition for their age.

Mary Smith must have been a remarkable lady. Her husband died at sea on the way to the colonies from Northern Ireland, and she reared two sons alone...acquiring grants for (and purchasing) large tracts of land in the Broadaway area of Anderson District in the late 1700's. It was very unusual for a woman to remain single and become a farmer / planter in that day.   The great-granddaughter of Mary Smith, Mrs. Nancy Dalrymple Casey, was the last of the great grandchildren of the Revolutionary heroine, Mary Smith. According to Mrs. Casey, her great grandmother came to America before the beginning of the Revolution and settled near the home of Colonel Samuel Moore on Broadway Creek.

Samuel Moore and Mary Smith’s husband were very dear friends and upon Moore’s leaving Ireland and establishing himself in the new world, he wrote his friend and asked him to bring his family and join him. So Smith, with his wife and two children, started out upon a long voyage across the ocean to South Carolina. Tragically enough, Smith fell ill and died while the little family was still at sea, and, with her husband’s body buried beneath the waves, Mrs. Smith journeyed on to land in America with her two young sons, William and Robert.  According to Vandiver’s Traditions and History of Anderson County, they finally reached the home of their friend on Broadway Creek, but there they were warmly welcomed and for some time stayed with the Moores. Since Mrs. Moore was an invalid, Mary Smith took on much of the domestic work. After some time, however, the widow moved into a small home by themselves not far away. Meanwhile the Revolutionary War came on and the Moore brothers raised a company to join the partisan fighters, of which Samuel Moore was made Colonel. The regiment was stationed near the old fort at Ninety-Six where they waged battle with the famous “Bloody Bill Cunningham.”

In that day news traveled exceedingly slowly, and the anxious women and children who were left at home were able to learn but little of what was going on at the field of battle.  The soldiers who were out upon the battle field fighting for the freedom of their country were poorly equipped, and knowing the state of the American army, Mrs. Moore worried for fear her husband was suffering from lack of good warm clothing and even food.

Perhaps it was because the young widow felt that she owed her friends so much - - or probably it was because of her own bravery and desire to do something for her adopted country that prompted Mary Smith to undertake the dangerous task of carrying to the Colonel Moore the things that his wife wished to send him. Over seventy miles through Tory and Indian infested country she rode on horseback in order that Colonel Moore would have news of his home and the comforts that he so badly needed. Emily Geiger and Paul Revere bore war news – Mary Smith bore only homely supplies prepared by loving hands of those back home, but her risks could have been no greater.

Reaching the American lines, Mrs. Smith delivered to her friend the messages and supplies which she had risked her life that he might have, and after a brief stay she bid him farewell and raced away toward home.  So the long years of war finally drew to a close, but the courageous woman’s name destined to live on because of her heroic deeds.

Colonel Moore, the friend who had been so kind to her, was killed in the skirmish with Cunningham at Swansea’s Ferry. Meanwhile the sons of the war heroine, William and Robert, grew up. William married Martha Duncan, and it was to this couple who in later years became the grandparents of Mrs. Casey.