Stephen Smith

Stephen Smith (1741-1799) was the fifth child of Samuel Smith Jr. and Elizabeth Drowne. He was baptized in the Congregational Church. He was a cooper by trade and listed in documents as a “gentleman”. In 1763, he married Mary Gorham in the Congregational Church. Stephen and Mary had several children including: Sarah, Mary, Elizabeth, Hannah, Lydia Power, Susannah, and Stephen. In 1774, as part of a town-wide effort, Stephen Sr. sent a sum of 15 shillings to support the people of Boston (that city’s port having been recently closed by the British). As of the 1774 Rhode Island Census, there were two black people (likely enslaved) living in the Smith household. In 1776, Stephen became captain of the Bristol Militia Company, later being replaced by William Throope. In 1777, he became a member of Rhode Island’s General Assembly. As of the 1790 United States Census there were three enslaved people living in the Smith household. In the early 1790s, Stephen became a justice of the peace, serving in the Bristol County Court of Common Pleas. A woman named Nan (born circa 1747), described as a “negro servant of Stephen, Esq.”, died in 1797.