Georgiana Jefferson Smith

Since I started this blog, I have written extensively about Lucy Jefferson Roberson and her descendants, but nothing about her sister, Georgiana Jefferson Smith.

That’s mostly because it took a long time to find anything about her, her husband Patrick Smith, or their children: Robert Isaac, Schuyler, and Lucelia, whose nickname was Lulu. I have found her in every census from 1860, when she was still living with her parents, Robert and Celia, and Lucy, in Indianapolis. Both she and Lucy are listed as school teachers. Lucy is listed as 20 years old, and Georgiana, 22.

Both of the girls married soon after that census. In fact, the family was enumerated on June 5 that year; Georgiana’s marriage license shows that she and Patrick were married a week later on June 12. Shortly thereafter, the couple moved to Pana, Christian County, Illinois, where Patrick became a very well-known and successful barber.

Their eldest son, Robert, listed as “Robin” in the 1870 census, was born in Pana in 1861. Their daughter, Lucelia, was born two years later, followed by the youngest, their son Schuyler, was born in 1874. An obituary for Patrick mentions a fourth child, but the child must have been born and died in between censuses.

Upcoming blogs will provide more information about Georgiana and their children. For today, I’m going to focus on her husband, who, like Lucy's husband, William Roberson, found employment and success as a barber.

This engraving, based on an oil painting by the English artist Eyre Crowe, is titled A Barber's Shop at Richmond, Virginia. This image of an African American barber in the American South was published on the cover of the March 9, 1861, edition of the Illustrated London News. By that date, seven Southern states had seceded from the Union, and in the following month the Civil War would commence. (Courtesy of Encyclopedia Virginia, https://encyclopediavirginia.org/)

Patrick Smith of Pana, Illinois

Patrick Smith, I believe, was born in 1833 in Vigo County, Indiana, possibly to parents Merritt Smith (born about 1800 in Kentucky) and Chancy Smith (born about 1807 in Virginia). The 1850 census identifies Merritt, 50, a farmer, and Chancey, 43, as black, along with their children, Patrick, 14; Henry, 13; Mary, 12; and Charlotte, 7. 

The family also appears in the 1860 census; they were enumerated in August, and Patrick, who married Georgiana in June, is not listed. The other children are listed: Henry, 24, a barber; Mary, now 20; and Charlotte, now 16. Besides Merritt’s age being listed as 53 (he was listed as 50 in 1850), woman named Jane, age 48 and born in North Carolina, is listed in the next line below him. Did Merritt remarry, or are Chancey and Jane the same person? 

So, I don’t know definitively that this is Patrick’s family and, in this case, it’s a rabbit hole I really don’t need to enter right now. (Tempting, though it may be!) But I am satisfied for now, particularly because brother Henry also became a barber. And, Henry shows up in the 1879 census with Patrick and Georgiana, and is still listed as a barber.

Patrick appears first in The Pana Gazette in an article on Page 3 of the September 6, 1865, issue: “Supposed Horse Thieves.”

The article relates that two men rode into Pana on horseback and stopped to eat at a restaurant owned by L.C. Davis. They offered to sell the horses for $25 apiece, stating that they bought them at a government sale in Saint Louis and now preferred the idea of completing their trip by rail.

Davis “smelled a mouse,” and became suspicious of their story, enlisting Pat. Smith [sic] to pay for and take possession of the chestnut sorrel and dark bay equines. They originally planned to have the two men arrested, but had to let them go because they had no way to prove their theory. The men left by train, as promised, for home the next day.

In the August 18, 1876, issue, again on Page 3, a blurb announces that Thomas Poston, a barber from Shelbyville, Indiana, for more than 20 years, was now working with Pat Smith in his shop. In August 1872, he buys a house; a December 1, 1883, blurb informs readers that Pat Smith was building a fence behind his barber shop; two weeks later, the December 15 issue, on Page 1, states that “Pat Smith killed the dog that bit his boy.” The April 9, 1888, issue of The Pana Evening Gazette” includes an advertisement announcing that Louis Payne has taken over as “successor to Patrick Smith at the old reliable Barber Shop!” on North Locust Street. 

The most amusing article, though, was found in the September 8, 1890, issue of the Evening Gazette, on Page 4: 

Pat and his Pig

Although not strictly in accordance with the view of our board of health or the ordinance in regard to sanitary regulations, our venerable colored barber, Pat Smith, with a view to utilizing his kitchen slops and eventually putting pork in the barrel, erected a pen on the alley in the rear of his shop and purchased a couple of nice Chester-White shoats which were delivered last Friday afternoon.

While one was being put into the pen, the other was left loose in the yard with a girl to watch that it did not get into the alley. The squealing of its companion evidently caused it to suspicion that all was not exactly right, and seeing exit to the alley cut off by the faithful sentinel armed with a broomstick, cast its eyes in the opposite direction and espied a screen door, which seemed to say––“this way, piggie!”

Whether the invitation was real or imaginary, the pig did not stop to debate, but broke for the door as fast as his all fours could carry him, and plunged through the screen. The door was that leading into Mrs. Smith’s kitchen, a part of the house to which she gives her special personal attention. This mattered not to his pigship; he was pursued by an irate female and a broomstick, and his only thought was to escape.

No sooner had he reached the kitchen than he observed another open door further on, through which he successfully passed. This brought him into Mr. Smith’s barber-shop, where he halted long enough to read the sign “shaving done here,” when, to the consternation of workmen and customers, and not desiring a closer shave than he had already had, broke for the front screen door and liberty!

Once in the street, he gave a grunt of satisfaction, scented his course, got to the railroad, and struck eastward, possibly thinking that some unseen power could propel him along at locomotive speed! In this however, he was mistaken.

Pat and his man Friday comprised the propelling power, which, after a long and exciting chase, enabled them to overtake and capture the pig. Throwing him upon his back and holding him there until they recovered their breath, they each took hold of a hind foot and started back with him, his fore feet and nose plowing little furrows in the dust as he was drug along. 

The pig was finally restored to the company of its mate, no doubt to their mutual satisfaction, while Pat can discover nothing but perplexity in a pig matinee.

It is Pat Smith’s obituary, however, that ties together some of the information I had found so far. Published on Page 4 of the April 20, 1895, issue of Pana’s Weekly Palladium:

SUMMONED SUDDENLY

–––––––––––––––––––

Patrick Smith, the Veteran Barber Dies

Early This Morning of Appoplexy

“Pat Smith is dead!” Such was the exclamation heard by the early arising business men upon their coming down town this morning to open up their places of business. It was a shock; it was a surprise. All who heard the report doubted it, for not a man in town who passed Mr. Smith’s barber shop yesterday, thought for once that ‘ere the approaching night had more than half passed, he would be a corpse.

He had been as well as usual throughout the day and in the evening assisted in  scrubbing out his barber shop on S. Locust street. This completed, he retired to his home him the Tunnison property on Locust opposite his barber shop; here he at an orange and joked with his wife and the barbers who have rooms in the building and at eleven o’clock retired, feeling as well as he has felt in the last two years.

At midnight he was taken with one of his usual attacks of appoplexy [sic], to which he has been subjected for two years past. He suffered considerably and evidently during the attack a blood vessel bursted, for blood run from his nose and mouth in a stream.

Drs. Miller and Huber were hurriedly summoned, but before they arrived the spirit of the deceased had passed from this earthly body and into the invisible and unfathonable [sic]beyond.

Patrick Smith was born in Terre Haute, Ind., in 1833, consequently was 62 years of age when death came. He was married to Georgiana Jefferson at Indianapolis, Ind., on the 12th day of June 1860. To them were born four children, but three of them passed over some years ago, leaving the one living daughter, Mrs. Wm. B. Elliott, of St. Paul, Minn., together with the wife and widow, to mourn his sad and sudden taking away.

Mr. Smith came to Pana on the first day of September, 1860, two months after his marriage, and opened a barber shop, which he conducted until his death; he was therefore one of our oldest residents. 

“Pat” Smith, as he was familiarly called by name, was known to not only every resident of Pana, but to all surrounding population. In fact, it would probably be an enigma to find an old resident in Central Illinois who had not during sometime in his life heard of Pat Smith the barber.

He was known only as a whole-souled genial, jolly, upright colored gentleman whose heart was as white as snow and a man who bore malice to none. Pleasant, happy and jovial in manner, he was the life of the section of town in which he lived and conducted his business and his familiar figure, hearty laugh and pleasant smile for everyone will be missed by all who knew him while in life.

Mr. Smith was a moral, honest man, a member of the First M.E. church for over ten years and conducted himself in such a manner as to win the respect and good will of all who met him, and his everyday life was such that might be termed an enviable one. 

But he has passed from these walks in everyday life and his passing away calls for real and sincere sorrow form our people, and true sympathy for his bereaved wife and daughter.

The funeral will be held from the M.E. church Sunday at 10:30 a.m., interment will be made at the Mound cemetery, Rev. Everhart having charge of the obsequies. Friends and acquaintances of the family are invited to attend.

There are no listings in Mound Cemetery for Patrick Smith, or any of his children, on FindAGrave.com. But I’ll keep looking.