My Smiths of Mississippi & Georgia

JOHN DOUGLAS SMITH

The earliest Smith I have traced is John Douglas Smith, born 1803 in Culpepper County, Virginia. In 1824 he married Mary Frances Singleton, also of Virginia. They had ten children: Martha Ann, Mary Emily, Ella Francis, James Henry, Ariana Adeline, William Randolph, Emmaretta Cook, Octavia Davis, John Douglas, and Narcisus.

JAMES HENRY SMITH

Our next ancestor was James Henry Smith born June 19, 1833, in Culpeper County, Virginia, married in 1853 to Mary Jane “Molly” McClellan, daughter of “Deacon” John McClellan and Isobel Cummings. She was born in 1833 in Hebron, New York. They are buried in the Rose Hill Cemetery in Carroll County, Mississippi. Their son was Charles McClellan Smith.

CHARLES McCLELLAN SMITH

Charles McClellan Smith was born on May 26, 1857, in Mississippi. He had three brothers, Frank, Douglas, and James Waters. Charles’ first marriage was to Mary Frances Jones who lived in Sidon. The couple had three children, Ann Judson Smith, Charles Smith, and James Brantley Smith. Mary Frances died on July 26, 1888, at the age of 27.

On January 8, 1896, Charles married again, this time to Belle Irene Suber (August 2, 1872 – March 30, 1948). She was born in Atlanta, Mississippi (Chickasaw County). The couple lived at Fairview Cottage on the Clifton Plantation and had five children: Wilburn Suber Smith, Jessie Mae Smith, Harold Arnett Smith, Lorena Smith, and Charles McClellan Smith, Jr.

WILBURN SUBER SMITH

Wilburn Suber Smith, Sr. was born on December 6, 1896, in Fairview Cottage, at Hemingway (no longer a town) in Carroll County, Mississippi. He was baptized in 1909 at the Shiloh Baptist Church, also in Carroll County.

He was ordained a minister at the First Baptist Church at Oxford, Mississippi on August 8, 1920. He studied law at the University of Mississippi and graduated in 1923 then went to law school and passed the Mississippi bar exam but may never have practiced. Soon after, he entered the seminary at Louisville, Kentucky.