The Smart Family Pioneers

In The Smart Family Pioneers, follow the sojourning Smart Families as they journey from one frontier wilderness to the next, settling the land, fighting for their country, and homesteading the west. The main focus in this beautifully illustrated work is a comprehensive account of the pioneering journeys of Joseph Smart Sr. and his descendants. Told through revealing personal sketches, nostalgic photographs, and historical documents, this edition contains an in-depth and sweeping study of the Smart families, beginning with the patriarch who followed the Great Wagon Road south from Pennsylvania in the 1760s and migrated to western North Carolina, a hinterland populated by Cherokee Indians, bears, and mountain lions. The authors detail the struggles and conditions that the early settlers to this primitive wilderness endured. They also shed light on the plight of the Confederate soldiers when duty called in the 1860s, and moreover, they tell of the anguish and many deaths that the Smart families suffered during the Civil War. In addition, the authors recount the tales of the western exodus and wanderlust of Joseph's children and grandchildren who traversed the southern Appalachians and settled in the coves of eastern Tennessee and intermarried with the Cherokees, while other family members forged north and west to Indiana and Missouri before moving on to the plains of Texas, crossing the dangerous Red River and surviving numerous Indian raids. The incredible sagas of hardship and sacrifice that these original pioneers survived, along with the heartbreaking details of gruesome accidental deaths and heinous tales of cruel hangings and cold-blooded murder, make this book a "must read" for both historians and genealogists alike. The Smart Family Pioneers is the eighth book of genealogy and history written by the brother and sister researchers, Dennis C. Martin and Cynthia Y. Whited. Their eight archives of past events and family histories offer a compelling study in to the lives and former times of many people from western North Carolina, and are sure to be the main source of reference for many years to come for those seeking information regarding their Carolina ancestors.