My Genealogy Hound

Col. W. G. Smith, lawyer, of the firm of Snodgrass & Smiths, was born in Granville County, N. C., September 25, 1828, a son of George C. and Martha (Gooch) Smith, the former of German-French ancestry and the latter of Welsh descent The father was born in Virginia in 1806, died at his son’s, Dr. Henry P. Smith, whom he desired to have treat him for dropsy of the heart. He died of pneumonia April, 1, 1875. The mother was born in North Carolina, August, 10, 1809, and died in White County, December 24, 1881. The father, a tailor, was an apprentice in the same shop with Andrew Johnson in Raleigh and Oxford, N. C. The parents were married near Oxford, May 10, 1826. In 1848 they began a five years’ residence in Rutherford County, and then came to McMinnville where they were living at the time the father died. The mother then made her home with her son, Rev. J. D. Smith, who is a popular minister in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Our subject, one of nine children, was educated in the Oxford Academy of his native State; has been an extensive reader also. Preceding his parents a few months to Tennessee, he came to Nashville where he worked at the gilder’s trade, painting mirror frames for three years. In 1853 he established a general store at McMinnville, but the following June lost the whole of his small earnings. Beginning again he continued as salesman for four years, working for a firm at Increase. In 1857 he came to White County and bought a stock of goods from James A. Hill, but in 1861 he left his business with a brother, and became captain of Company C, Twenty-fifth Tennessee Infantry (Confederate), and afterward lieutenant-colonel of the Eighty-fourth Tennessee Regiment Infantry, and took part in the battles of Shiloh, Corinth, Murfreesboro, Chickamauga, and from Dalton to Atlanta. After the war he returned home and resumed his business at Cave, White County, and added the tanning business also. In 1866 he began the study of law and was licensed a few years after, and since that time has been before the Sparta bar. After 1869 he was on his farm in the Third District until 1886, when he came to Sparta. May 10, 1857, he married Amanda R. Templeton, born in White County, Tenn., September 24, 1836. They have seven children, of whom W. T. is a member of the law firm. Our subject is a Democrat, and he, his wife and four children are members of the Christian Church.