DANIEL SMITH,
a Senator from Tennessee; born in Stafford County, Va.,
October 29, 1748; attended William and Mary
College, Williamsburg, Va.; became a surveyor;
moved to Augusta County, Va.; deputy surveyor
of Augusta County in 1773;
fought in the Indian wars 1774; major of the
Washington County militia; high sheriff of
Augusta County in 1780;
commissioned colonel in the Second Battalion
and fought in several battles of the Revolution;
moved to Sumner
County, Tenn., at the close of the war; laid
out the town of Nashville; member of the North
Carolina convention which ratified the United
States Constitution
1789.
In 1790, President George Washington appointed
Daniel Smith as Secretary of the U. S. Territory
South of the River Ohio (a.k.a. Southwest Territory). He was a
member of the constitutional convention of 1796 to
draw up a constitution for the new State of
Tennessee.
He made the first map of Tennessee, he was a
Brigadier General of the Mero District
(State Militia); appointed as a Republican to the United States
Senate to fill the vacancy
caused by the resignation of Andrew Jackson
and served from October 6, 1798, to March 3,
1799; elected as a
Republican to the United States Senate and
served from March 4, 1805, to March 31, 1809,
when he resigned; engaged
in agricultural pursuits; died at his home,
“Rock Castle,” near Hendersonville, Sumner County, Tenn.,
June 16, 1818; interment in the family burial
ground near his home.
Bibliography
Sources: Durham, Walter. Daniel Smith: Frontier Statesman. Gallatin, Tenn.:
Sumner County Library Board, 1976;
Sioussat, St. George, ed. ‘The Journal of Daniel Smith.’
Tennessee Historical Magazine
(March 1915): 40-65.
Also see: Daniel
Smith, by Jay Guy Cisco, 1909. (On Sumner Co. TNGenWeb)
