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MEP stated that her first husband was named James H Smith in a 1895 San Francisco Examiner Article or James W Smith per her 1902 Interview with Sam P. Davis and associates interviewed by Helen Holdredge. Reviewing vintage newspaper articles one does easily see errors in small but significant things, like spelling of names, or the 1895 article also states MEP was bounded to Phebe Hussey whereas she’s stated elsewhere Grandma Hussey was named “Mary”.
MEP said James Smith was in construction in Boston and also had land in Virginia. Though she first saw him at the tailor shop where she was employed, she joined St Mary’s church in Boston in order to attract his interest. She converted to Catholicism and participated as a solo singer with the Church’s choir. Catholics were not prominent in colonial or antebellum Virginia, they existed in small enclaves, often not openly practicing due to British anti-catholicism.
MEP said her first husband’s land was near Harper’s Ferry. Past scholars have assumed near Charles Town as there was a town just west of there named “Smithfield” now called Middleway. There was however another Charlestown, 220 miles west of Harper’s Ferry on the Ohio River in Virginia just south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was renamed Wellsburg in the early 1810s.
For the Charles Town near Harper’s Ferry, taxation records for Jefferson County, WV still exist, two sets. One set is for land and the second personal property (slaves, cows and carriages).
Scrutiny of the Jefferson County (Charles Town) land tax records does not reveal a landowner named James Smith. The largest Smith landowners were Edward Smith 333 acres of land, John & Joseph Smith with over 400 acres and John H Smith with 208 acres. John H Smith would live until 1892 and is buried near his wife Elizabeth in Smithfield/Middleway. It is interesting to note that in a few Probate records for the county a James W Smith is seen purchasing small items from the estate. In one case a James Smith is distinguished from a James W Smith on the same paper.
A review of the “personal property tax” records does find in the Smithfield area, James Smith, Sr (died circa 1819) and his son, James Smith Jr (active 1809-1823 and then 1840- 1850). Jr did not have any slaves in the early 1840s but by 1845-1850 he listed “1” (it should be noted that people emancipated from slavery would purchase family members and Not free them in so they could remain in the State, see earlier Post on legal history of slavery in VA).
Catholic Smiths in Virginia?
MEP stated she was married to John J Pleasant at “Gore Catholic Church” in Charles Town. No such location has been found operating under that name in the US. Several different “Charles Towns” were researched including a potential “Gore Street or Avenue” being the clincher. The closest church to Charles Town, VA in 1848 was in Frederick, Maryland. Thus again one wonders if MEP wasn’t being purposely misleading and if so, why? Another story had them married aboard a whaling vessel in route to New Orleans but historians of Nantucket state the Captain would still have registered the marriage as it was required by law. No such record has been found in Massachusetts.
If James Smith wasn’t from Jefferson County, an obvious question is where were Catholic enclaves found in Virginia? Investigation into this question found various possibilities, Stafford and Prince William Counties on the Potomac River but the most intriguing is the “Northern Neck” area of Virginia, outside Richmond, between the Potomac and Rappahannock River. This is a strong possibility due to the fact that John J Pleasant was born outside Richmond and was registered in the 1840s as living and working in Chesterfield County, VA, just north west of Richmond.
The Northern Neck was the heart of Catholic Virginia.
The Northern Neck had close ties to Catholic Maryland across the Potomac, and many Catholic gentry families settled here specifically Northampton and Westmoreland Counties. The Potomac River served as a conduit — Catholic missionaries (usually Jesuits based in Maryland) would cross into Virginia to minister to scattered families. This made riverine access crucial to Catholic survival in the colony.
Supporting this idea is MEP’s claims about the Jesuit priest, John McElroy. She claimed McElroy had some part in her official introduction to Smith in Boston. However, McElroy, a Jesuit priest in Frederick, Maryland, was not in Boston until the late 1840s, long past when MEP married Smith. It is possible McElroy was one of the Jesuit priests who went down the Potomac River from Washington City and later Fredereick, MD, ministering to the small Catholic congregations.
When researching how Catholics came to Virginia given its settlement by England, land of the Anglican Church. Armed rebellions or conflicts in Maryland led to families fleeing the state and settling in Virginia’s Northern Neck, during the Protestant vs. Catholic conflicts throughout the 1640s–1650s, Thus a Smith family would’ve arrived early in the colonization of the area. Catholics often appear in Episcopal records as it was even with the Tudor Catholic church split, very much like Catholicism at that time. This specific location is 100 miles from the Great Dismal Swamp, a known refuge for escaped enslaved people. This location would provide MEP knowledge of the plethora of riverways in Virginia and North Carolina which she utilized in her work for John Brown.
