George Smoot Sr. and Anne Beale
William Smoot’s great-great grandson George Smoot Sr. was born in 1742 at St. Mary’s, Maryland. At the age of 22, he married Anne Beale, who was 20 years old, and they had five children. Their eldest son, George Washington Smoot, eventually became the father of A.O. Smoot. Not much more is known about George Sr.’s life, possibly because he died relatively young. The year of his death is disputed. At some point after the birth of his youngest child, he disappears from the record and there is speculation among researchers that he may have suffered from some form of mental illness. We do know that his father, John Smoot, did not leave anything to George Sr. in his will, and he left only one shilling sterling each to George’s sons. If I have done the conversion correctly, this is the equivalent of less than ten dollars in today’s money. Other family members inherited considerable assets, indicating that George Sr. probably was not regarded very highly by his father.
In contrast, Anne Beale’s plantation-owning father John Beale did provide for Anne and her children in his will written not long before his death in 1792. With the exception of William, each of Anne’s children received one slave. At this time, Anne and George Sr.’s two oldest sons, George Washington Smoot and John Smoot were in their mid-twenties and already married. The two young men were to split an 84-acre tract of land in Virginia, which they sold the following year. Their younger brother William received no land but did inherit two slaves instead of one. It may seem surprising to us today to see enslaved humans treated as interchangeable with land, but at that time enslaved people were defined as real estate under the law.
At some point, the family moved to Kentucky. On November 27, 1806, an unusual legal agreement was recorded in Fleming County Kentucky between Anne Beale Smoot and a man named James Cunningham. At this point, Anne was 62 years old and almost certainly a widow. The agreement required James Cunningham to provide Anne with a comfortable home and lifestyle for the remainder of her life. In exchange, Cunningham would take temporary use and ownership of a 17-year-old enslaved boy named Rubin, a 30-year-old woman named Sarah, and Sarah’s five sons, ages 2-10. Sarah and Rubin had been given to Anne at some point by her father, and as Sarah’s owner, Anne also became the owner of each of Sarah’s children when they were born. These enslaved people were assets that represented financial security for Anne at a time when there was little in the way of a safety net for older women. Social Security would not begin in the United States for another 129 years.
There appears to have been a valued relationship between Anne and Sarah. The agreement stipulated that when Anne died, ownership of Sarah would revert back to Anne’s heirs. The boys would continue to serve James Cunningham until Cunningham’s death or until each boy reached the age of 28, at which time their ownership would revert back to Anne’s heirs. The agreement allowed for Cunningham to hire out these slaves for pay, but they were not to be sent out of Kentucky, and Sarah was not to be separated from her husband by more than 10 miles as long as he continued to live in the area.
Still, Anne struggled with the morality of slavery. A Kentucky law passed twelve years earlier made manumission lawful. In other words, it a person could emancipate their slaves subject to the right of creditors. A week after she signed the initial agreement with James Cunningham, Anne Beale Smoot recorded another legal document with the court.
“I being conscious as well of the inconsistency with the christian character as the moral and political evil of detaining any of the human race in involuntary and perpetual Bondage and slavery without their free will and consent” she began, and then she declared that Sarah, the six boys, and any future children born to Sarah would be “set free and at liberty” at the end of the obligation presented by the earlier agreement with Cunningham, rather than having their ownership simply transferred back to Anne’s heirs. Anne must have had legal assistance in drafting these documents because she marked her signature with an X, an indicator that she herself was illiterate.
In 1811 and 1812, several subsequent court filings show that Anne revoked the manumission intended to free her slaves when they reached age 28. Her son William Reed Smoot became a party to these subsequent agreements, one of which transferred ownership of the boys Charles and Bill, then ages 15 and 11, to William in exchange for an annual payment of 20 pounds (roughly the equivalent of $2,000 in today’s dollars) by William to his mother for the rest of her life.
As I read these court documents I am trying to read between the lines. My assumptions may be in error, but I think it is possible that William Reed Smoot did not share his mother’s moral misgivings about slavery. The manumission of her slaves would significantly affect his eventual inheritance. I wonder if he may have pressured his aging and illiterate mother to realign her legal and financial decisions to fit his own financial interests.
The compilation of these stories is a learning process for me. If you know of additional information, or if you see something that needs to be corrected, I invite you to add your comments below.
How are we connected to these people?
George Smoot Sr. and Anne Beale Smoot are the grandparents of Abraham Owen Smoot, who was Grandma Louise’s grandfather. Anne Beale Smoot is my children’s 5th-great-grandmother.
Where to learn more:
Deeds and other legal documents were accessed in Family Tree memories for Anne Nancy Beale (LKKM-QRP), George Smoot (LKKM-QRP)
It is enlightening and saddening to read these details of how real people were treated as property.