"The following brief history of our branch of the Smith family has been complied by W. S. Smith from data gathered from various sources. Special mention should be made of that help from Mrs. Edith Smith Gaskill.

We are unable to trace our family tree in Ireland farther back than the early part of the eighteenth century. The first member in the direct line was a fiery young Scott, who ran away from his home on the death of his father becasue he did not want to be under the direction of his mother. This young Scott, John Wier, was born in 1709, and migrated to the north of Ireland in his early youth.

Miss Ellen Mateer, eleven years his senior, took a fancy to this dashing young Scott and sought to reform him. Incidentally she made love to him at the same time. She succeeded in both her endeavors, and they married March 20, 1729, he being nineteen and she thirty. John became a very steady going and successful business man, living to the ripe age of ninety-seven. He always contended that if he had his life to live over again, would marry young."