Footnotes to Long Island History
The Long Island Smiths
by
Thomas R. Bayles
A good
story is told of a census taker years ago before there were so many
new names in the town, who formed a habit of asking at each place he
stopped, the name of the next family and usually met with the same
response.
“ Bless me,” he
said at length to a long lanky native, “are you all Smiths around
here?”
“ I’ll tell you
how ‘tis, squire,” said the old man. “There are a pretty
considerable lot of us Smiths around this part of the Island, and no
mistake. There was Tangier Smith, who the British government
thought so much of they gave him a grant for a large part of the
present Town of Brookhaven. Then there was Bull Smith, who made a
swap with the Indians of a few beads and red coats for all the land
his brindle bull Sam could trot around in one day. One family of us
is known as the John Rock Smiths, because its ancestor used a big
boulder for the rear wall of his house. Another line is called the
John Black Smiths, because its ancestor was as dark complexioned as
an Indian. Still another family is known as the Block Smiths, because the fact their founder had a big horse
block in front of his door, and another as the Weight Smiths,
because their ancestor owned the first set of weights and measures
in the settlement.
“ But bless you, we’re not as bad off as they were in
Patchogue a few years ago. There were actually five William Smiths
living there not a mile apart. But the people got around that,
too. One of them owned a peacock, the only one of the five that
did, so he became “ Peacock Bill Smith.” Then one of them invented
an improved kind of a wheelbarrow with three wheels, and he was
known all his days as “Wheelbarrow Bill.” A third one lived on a
point putting put into the bay so he was called “Point Bill.” The
fourth one was famous diver so he was known as “Submarine Bill.”