Letter from Hillard H. Smith to Ann Raleigh Eastham

hadn't gone a mile until I met Col. Ben Caudill himself. He at once drew his sword and ordered me to turn my course. I threw my gun on him and told him to hit the road and not to look back; if he did I would kill him. He took me at my K. A. House, Tallahasse, FIa., Dec. 10, 1937 My dear Ann, My daughter, Carol, has requested me to send you a "somewhat" history of our family back some three or four generations that you may use it in your class work in college (or in teaching). I am going to try to comply with this request in an "offhand , hurried, ramshackle" way, and you have the privilege of dressing it up in your best English when you present it. I shall not try to go into minute detail of all things connected with their coming to Kentucky, their settlement, living conditions , habits and customs et cetera. It would take a volume you know. The first authentic history we have of our ancestors on my paternal side (The Smith Family ) is that my great great grandfather , William Smith, lived near the coast in eastern Virginia prior to the year 1775 and reared a large family. His son, Richard Smith, my great great grandfather, came to Kentucky, a young man about the year 1792, when Kentucky became a State. He was born in 1771 and was 21 years of age when he came and stopped at a spot near Hazard on the Kentucky River. He married Alicia Combs, daughter of Nicholas word, and I was glad of it for I didn't know whether my gun would fire or not. The Colonel then put a reward of $500 for my capture, but he never had the pleasure of getting me, but I did help capture him at Gladeville, Va. Combs (called "Danger") about 1795, and to this marriage was born fourteen children —eight sons and six daughters. The eldest son, William, bom in 1795, was my great grandfather who married his cousin Millie Combs; and to them were bom ten children, the oldest of which was my grandfather William, born 1825. He married Martha Ashley, daughter of Rev. Jordan Ashley who came from North Carolina . To them were bom ten children, one of whom was my father, the eldest son, John Ashley Smith, who married my mother Elizabeth Jane Hagan, daughter of John Vint Hagan (or Higgins) and Jenny Amburgey , daughter of John P. Amburgey and Lourania Polly of Letcher County. To this marriage were born five children, myself and four others. I married Leo Dicie Francis , daughter of Huram Francis, and there have been born to our marriage ten children , seven of whom are living and most of whom you know. In 1792 all eastern Kentucky—and most of the state for that matter—was a primeval forest, and at that time Richard Smith, my ancestor above mentioned lived and had his being in that great wilderness like most all the pioneers who came to Kentucky. When they first came over the "Divide" LETTER FROM HILLARD H. SMITH TO ANN RALEIGH EASTHAM, 19 as they called the Black and Cumberland Mountains, they sometimes lived in tents until they could throw up a cabin of logs. These cabins could be erected, however, in a very short time. After the logs were cut and hauled to the site, they would in most cases, have what they called "a house raisin." The few neighbors would come for several miles and put up the walls in one day. Clapboards were riven by the oldfashioned "froe" and placed on the house for a roof. While they did not bother at first to hew the logs for the walls but put up round logs, they did hew puncheons for the floors. They built their chimneys out of a few stones up to and including the fireplace and from there to the top of the house with sticks and clay. Cooking was done on the fire, old fashioned pots and bakers—the pots being hung on "pot racks" and the baker for the cornbread pone was placed on hot embers in front of...