John Smith

John Smith (May 7, 1750March 5, 1836) was a Virginia planter and politician who served in both houses of the Virginia General Assembly as well as the United States House of Representatives. Early and family life Smith was born in 1750 at Shooter's Hill, near Locust Hill in Middlesex County in the Colony of Virginia to parents Captain John Smith (1715–1771) and Mary Jaquelin (1714–1764). He also raised his orphaned nephew, Augustine Jacquelin Smith, who was educated as a physician but did not practice that profession, instead becoming a planter after reaching legal age to inherit his father's 'Ravensworth' plantation, and serving several distinct terms in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Fairfax County. John Smith married Animus (Anna) Bull, daughter of Gen. John Bull of Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, and they had at least three daughters and two sons who reached adulthood. His son Augustine Charles Smith (1789-1843) would also serve with distinction as a U.S. Army officer (in the War of 1812, promoted from the rank of major to colonel) and then presided over a school in Winchester as well as won election to the Virginia Senate (representing Frederick and Jefferson Counties 1827-1831). His grandson, Col. Archibald Magill Smith would continue the family's martial tradition as a Confederate cavalry captain, although several of his cousins became doctors and moved to Missouri before the conflict. His daughter Eliza Barnwell Smith married prominent architect Robert Mills. His granddaughter Mary Powell Mills married Creole diplomat Alexander Dimitry. Career Smith moved westward to Frederick County, Virginia in 1773 and became a planter. By 1777 he built a manor house he called "Hackwood", near the county seat at Winchester. He was commissioned a justice of the peace in 1773, and the county lieutenant in 1777.