Lou’s View – March 24, 2016
The Widow Smith
by Lou Bernard
So for Women’s History Month, who wouldn’t love a story of a female Revolutionary War hero? A woman who overcame obstacles to help win the war, and supported the soldiers? A woman who helped to make this area great?
Allow me to introduce you to the Widow Catherine Smith.
According to the stories, Catherine Smith was almost a Disney movie. Widowed, with ten children, she built a mill and made guns for the pioneers. This mill was in White Deer Valley, or Wayne Township, or both. Records are sketchy. And here you have one of the problems with studying Catherine Smith.
There’s some conflicting information. And there’s not a lot of documentation from primary sources. Most of what we know about Catherine Smith was written long after the fact, and much of it can’t be verified. Here’s what we know for certain about Widow Catherine Smith: She probably existed.
Seriously, that’s about it really. If anyone has any factual documentation from the time Smith was alive, I’d love to see it.
Some of my information comes from a well-done paper from 1950, reprinted at the library. Some of it comes from an unsigned paper typed in all capital letters—If they took the time to find the caps lock, clearly they know what they’re talking about. And some of it comes from the works of Henry Shoemaker, whom I respect and admire. But Shoemaker was often a victim of other people who embellished—A lot of this information comes from interviews with local citizen John Dyce, who was known to tell inaccurate tales. (A phrase that rhymes with “wool splitter” would not be out of place when describing John Dyce.)
Here’s what we think we know. Catherine Smith, widow of Peter, was a small, tough woman with short, dark hair. She had ten sons, and settled with them somewhere (Again, either White Deer or McElhattan. Or perhaps first White Deer, and then later, McElhattan.) She had teeth that would have benefited from some orthodontic work, except that field hadn’t been invented yet.
She became a manufacturer of guns, making quality Pennsylvania rifles and distributing them to the local pioneers. The unsigned paper from the library files says,”NOW GUNS WERE SCARCE ON THE FRONTIER,” and Widow Smith helped solve that problem. According to some sources, she often wasn’t paid for her guns, which she accepted for the greater good. And also, possibly, because it’s likely she couldn’t read or write, which has a tendency to negatively affect good record-keeping. This may also be why there’s very little contemporary information about her.
There are court records in Philadelphia, according to some sources, that show that she petitioned the legislature for her money, after her land was repossessed. According to most sources, she walked to Philadelphia for her court appearances thirteen times. Barefoot. No kidding; she only had one pair of shoes, and didn’t want to wear them out. She would walk there, wash her feet in a stream just outside the city, and then put on her shoes for her court appearance. Afterward, she’d take off her shoes and walk back, again barefoot. Legend has it that she put on over four thousand miles attending court.
Some information comes from the works of John Blair Linn, who was an excellent historian. Linn comes closer than anyone else to documenting his sources: He shows an assessment list from Northumberland County that lists Smith as owning ten acres, three horses, and two cows.
On another list, Catherine is shown to have died on July 3, 1829. She was buried, allegedly, in the Old Pioneer Cemetery, and then later dug up when they were putting in either a barn or a sheep pen. The settlers recognized her from her protruding teeth—Apparently her grave was unmarked—And moved her to another local cemetery. (Some sources say Union-Throne, in Wayne Township.) Needless to say, there is no marker and no record of her in either cemetery. Or, for that matter, in any cemetery in Wayne Township.
Not to put too fine a point on it, here, but I’m even a little dubious on the existence of the Old Pioneer Cemetery. According to the Genealogical Society, it had no markers and no records, nobody could ever remember seeing it, and the only evidence for it was one guy who claimed to have found graves with dowsing rods, which have about the same success rate as the Long Island Medium.
The Widow Catherine Smith does make an intriguing mystery. And for that reason, she’s worth remembering.
