Smith, *Jonathan Jr.

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Ancestry.com Database: Danvers, Essex County, Massachusetts Births to 1850

Given Name: Jonathan
Surname: Smith
Son/Daughter: s
Father's Name & Occupation: Jonathan
Mother: Abigael
Birth/Baptism Date: Apr. 7, 1762
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The 1790 Census image for Hillsborough County, New Hampshire shows Jonathan Jr. Smith's household as three white males over age 16, no white males under age 16, three white females, one other free person (no race or gender), and no slaves. Living just 8 households away is Jonathan Smith, who I have assumed is "my" Jonathan's father.
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The 1800 Hillsborough Co., NH Census for Amherst shows Jonathan Smith's family as follows:
~ 2 white males under age 10
~ 1 white male age 16-26
~ 2 white males age 26-45
~ 1 white male over age 45
~ 2 white females under age 10
~ 1 white female age 10-16
~ 1 white female age 16-26
~ 1 white female age 26-45
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The 1810 Census for Amherst, Hillsborough Co., New Hampshire shows Amelia as head of household so I assume that John has died by this time or already away in Pennsylvania. Her household is enumerated as follows:
~ 2 white males under age 10 (sons-Samuel and ???)
~ 1 white male age 10-16 (son-George)
~ 1 white female under age 10 (daughter-Anna)
~ 1 white female age 10-16 (daughter-Lucy)
~ 1 white female age 16-26 (daughter-Harriet)
~ 1 white female age 26-45 (wife/head-Amelia)
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(Provided to me courtesy of Renee Cannon)

Taken From History of Amherst, New Hampshire,
By Daniel F. Secomb in 1883:

Page 773 - Jonathan Smith born in Danvers, Mass., Feb. 21, 1735; died in Amherst, N.H., Apr. 1, 1795; married Abigail Kilborn. She was born Nov. 27, 1733, and died Mar. 19, 1801. They settled in Amherst about 1770, where he was an innkeeper for several years.

JONATHAN, son of the above Jonathan and Abigail, was born in 1762, died in Bedford, Penn., in May, 1813; married Amelia, daughter of Hon. Samuel Dana, Dec. 8, 1787. Jonathan succeeded Gen. Moses Nichols as Register of Deeds for Hillsborough County in 1790, and held the office until he left Amherst in October, 1802; His wife remained in Amherst until about 1824, when she moved to New York City, where she died in 1826.
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There were six Jonathan Smiths listed in the 1810 Bedford Co, PA census. After viewing the enumeration for each of them, I believe none are likely to be this Jonathan Smith.
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Howard Locke Files; JSmithScandal.doc [Locke does not give date of The Telegraph. Possibly the Nashua Telegraph.]
THE THIRD REGISTER OF DEEDS FOR HILISBOROUGH COUNTY.
Who Held the Office from 1790 to 1802 and Left in Disgrace Deserting His Family.
Some years ago Col. Dana W. King made some excellent biographies of the men who held the office of register of deeds in the years past and gone. The biography of one of the most interesting of characters of all those who ever held the office was Isaac Brooks, a sketch of whose life and writings was given a few weeks ago. Today is given a history of the third register, Jonathan Smith, who held office from 1790 to 1802, but left the office and his home in a manner to bring disgrace on himself and all connected with him, showing that depravity is not wholly confined to the latter half of the nineteenth century but was seen in some cases at least at the beginning of the century.
This sketch, for which THE TELEGRAPH is indebted to Col. King will tell its own story, however, as follows:
Jonathan Smith - Jonathan Smith the third register, and who held the office from 1790 to 1802 can hardly claim what newspaper men call a ?first rate notice.? Consequently I shall chronicle his biography very briefly. The reason will appear further on. He was born in Amherst; and of a very good family, but at what date is unknown. His brother, Jedediah K. Smith, was a man of considerable note in his day, and long occupied the position of ?side judge? an instrument of government unknown now and I think not very well defined then, but something akin to our county commissioners of the present day. This brother was afterward a member of congress. Jonathan married early in life a sister of Judge Dana, and Governor Bell also married a sister.
I state these facts to show that he was respectably connected, and had every inducement family ties can offer to prove himself a man. None of the early registers made a better record than he, but he left the office without leaving a word behind him except the bare copy of such instruments as came to him for record. Had he been as garrulous as Brooks who followed him we might perhaps get an insight into his inner life and thoughts.
His own actions led him to pass away in disgrace, bringing ruin and unhappiness upon what is represented to have been as fine a family as then lived in Amherst. I will repeat the story of his downfall in a few words.
In the year 1800 he hired as clerk a young woman by the name of Hutchinson who assisted him for a year and a half with no word of slander against her. Then gossip had it that his wife was being neglected, and his whole attentions were being bestowed on his office assistant.
This was repeated so often that his friends took alarm at the blight on his good name, and waited on him, obtaining a promise that he would send her away. This he did ostensibly but she was soon after discovered hidden in his barn. When this discovery was made another storm of indignation was raised and she again disappeared from sight. Matters went along smoothly for a few weeks, when it was noticed that Smith took frequent walks toward Mont Vernon, the road to which led through a low pine forest. This excited the suspicions of some of the leading men of the town, and some half dozen of them constituted themselves a committee of investigation, to examine the doings of the Smith returning board.
After a long search among the pines, Mr. David Stewart, father of our worthy citizen of the same name, discovered a hut made of boughs, and as he stated it he walked in without ringing or rapping, and found the guilty couple keeping house therein.
The whole town was excited by this development, many threats were made, and before daylight Mr. Smith had disappeared, taking the woman, the partner of his crimes with him. He fled to some state in the Southwest, but where was never definitely known. He left his family nearly penniless. Many years afterwards, when his wife had become old and bowed down with age two strangers called upon her at Amherst, and claimed to be children of the erring couple, and claimed to have come from the ?South- west.? Further than this nothing was learned; nor was Mr. Smith ever heard of more. ------ Dana W. King