The Widow Catherine Smith

The Legend Of The Widow Catherine Smith

A woman who helped the revolutionary cause with her boring mill, to make rifles, and then had her land & mills taken from her, even after walking barefoot to Philadelphia and back thirteen times to plead her case.

"How would you like to walk to Philadelphia and back - barefooted at that?  How would you like to do it thirteen times- and do it in vain?  That is what the widow Catherine Smith did, when, after the Revolution, she was trying to secure justice in connection with her patriotic work in boring gun barrels for Washington's Army in her little mill at White Deer, Union County.  Here is the neglected story of heroism and devotion that should be known the world over.  It is a local story, about a local heroine, and few of us seem to know much about the widow Catherine Smith" - A 1949 advertisement for a WKOK broadcast by Charles A. Fryling

Peter and Catherine Schmidt are said to have come to the area that is now Lock Haven around 1768.  Peter was reputed to be a gunsmith from the Lancaster County region.  After moving north, he opened a trading post along the river.  But a few years later, Peter died, leaving his widow Catherine with 300 acres along the White Deer Creek.  It was there Catherine moved, building gristmill to process local grains, and a sawmill to cut local timber. White Deer Creek,  provided power for the mills and access to transportation on the nearby Susquehanna river.

"Mrs. Smith is described as follows by Mrs Dyce, a granddaughter: She was held to be good-looking in her day, yet she was very small, not over five feet tall.  Her hair was coarse, stiff and black and cut short like a mans.  She had a Roman nose, projecting teeth... yet her lips wore a pleasant expression.  She was active and wiry and always planning something for the  welfare of her family. It was for her children, never for herself, that she worked hard...  history tells us that two sons, Michael and Philip, established a grist mill in Clinton County with financial help from their mother who had bought downriver land from the Indians and sold it at a profit.  Another son, William, moved west and Peter Jr was killed by Indians in 1779."  Kitty Bowe, 1976 article for the Daily Item.

"It is recorded in the Pennsylvania archives that the widow borrowed money from neighbors who needed a sawmill to cut their logs into boards.  A grist mill was also needed to grind grain into flour, and the one she built saved the settlers a 30 mile trip to the closes other mill" - Kitty Bowe, 1976 article for the Daily Item.

At this time in history, guns were scarce.  Some of the militia had no guns at al.  Some settlers had muskets, but they  were not as accurate as a rifle.  To help with the need for rifles, the  widow Catherine Smith  either converted one of her mills, or constructed a new mill, as a boring mill.  Boring mills made rifle barrels and re-bored barrels as they became worn from use.

"During the summer of this year Widow Smith added a boring-mill to her other mills, near 

the mouth of White Deer creek. Here a great number of gun barrels were bored for the Continental army. " - Annals of Buffalo Valley by Linn

According to Frederick Godcharles, "The records show that a great number of gun barrels were bored in this mill.  She also added a hemp mill"  He further wrote, ""Her eldest son went into the army and this made her work the heavier, as he was her best help.  He was killed in the service"

Meginness, in his history of Lycoming County, wrote:

"There was a good mill seat at this point, and as a grist and saw mill were much wanted, she was often solicited to erect them.  The mills were of great advantage to the county; and the following summer she built a boring mill, where great numbers of gun barrels were bored for service in the Revolutionary army"

Another site states: "After doing some trading at Great Island and estab­lishing a gristmill a few miles away, she left the mill to her two sons and went to White Deer where she set up a boring mill. There, she manufactured rifles, a skill she had learned from her husband, a Lancaster gunsmith, until Indians burned her mills in 1779. So far as records show, she never collected any payment for the rifles she had delivered to the army." http://paheritage.wpengine.com/article/clinton-county-still-part-penns-woods/

"The mills were such a valuable asset to the frontier and the cause of freedom that early in the spring of 178 a small stockaded stronghold called Fort Menninger was built for their protection." - Katharine W. Bennet, Stories Of The West Branch Valley

Both Bennet & Godcharles  gave the following description of the layout:

"The widow Smith's mills were now the frontier, and the only place of refuge, except a small stockage named Fort Menninger, which was built about 80 rods from eh river on teh north bank of White Deer Creek, covering Widow Smith's mils.  The fort was situated west of the mills, forming an apex of an irregular triangle of which the mills formed one base, and a small stone house, the home of Widow Smith, the other. "

In 1779, the Smith family left the area, along with all of the other local settlers, in the Great Runaway.  The fort and the mills were burned down by the Indians.

"July 8 [1779], Widow Smith's mills burned, and one man killed, in White 

Deer township." - Linn's Annals of The Buffalo Valley 

In 1793 it's reported that the widow Smith returned to her stone home, which still stood, and she rebuilt the grist and saw mills.  

Unfortunately, it was then found that Peter Schmidt was not the first to receive the warrant for this land, and as such, the Widow Smith had no true rights to it.  "As frequently happened, the land office had given several warrants for the same tact, and the Claypool and Morris patent bore the earlier date" - Katharine Bennet, Stories Of The West Branch Valley. 

Claypool and Morris, claiming the prior right to the land, sent an ejection notice to the Widow Smith.

The widow had only squatters rights.  She petitioned the Pennsylvania Assembly for the return of her property, and also for payment for her work for the militia. Those named as supporting her petition include: William Blythe, Charles Gillespie, Colonel John Kelly, General Games Potter.

"As I gather from other sources, the lawyers repeatedly double-crossed her.  A hearing would be set for a given date.  The troubled widow would take off her shoes and walk the 170 miles or so to Philadelphia in her bare feet.  She could not afford to wear out her shoes - probably she had but one pair.  She put them  on at the last minute.  The pioneers habitually went to church in the same way. When she got to court, the case had been postponed.  There was nothing to do but trudge back home - barefoooted."  - Dr Lewis Thiess, Speech to Muncy Historical Society, 1950

.

"[The Widow Smith]  is said to have walked to Philadelphia and back 13 times on this business. How long the litigation continued is not a matter of record, but in 1801, Seth Iredell took possession of the premises as tenant of Claypool and Morris" - Godcharles

On one of her early trips to Philadelphia, the widow Smith was accompanied by her beautiful daughter Cassandra, "who was a head taller than her mother and created a sensation when she entered Independence Hall where the hearings were to take place." - Kitty Bowe, 1976 article for the Daily Item.

 Cassandra won the heart of 45 year old Claypool, who was willing to allow the Widow Smith to retain the property if he could marry the girl.  “The lonely 22-year-old girl was willing to marry him, in order to see her mother made happy. But the stern old Roman matron refused this patrician alliance for her daughter and the return of her property by any ‘left-handed bargain,’ as she called it, and continued to fight her petition on to its final inglorious end.” - Shoemaker

It's said that the Widow Smith was buried in the ancient settlers graveyard at the corner of Daniel Caldwells barn.  "Her bones were disturbed  when a barn was erected many years later, being identified by a venerable neighbor by her peculiar protruding teeth. A few years after this incident a man came to the place having traveled from Ohio to see the old mill site.  He said he was a son of Catherine Smith and that if justice had been done her, they would still own the place." - Godcharles

“There is something unspeakably pathetic in the history of this woman,” Meginness concludes. “Her struggles in widowhood; what she accomplished for the benefit of early settlers; the fact that she furnished a mill for the manufacture of gun barrels to aid in the achievement of our liberties; her misfortunes and her last appeal to the law-making power for assistance; her death, burial and the final disturbance of her bones, afford a theme for a volume.”

Historian Kitty Bowes, writing in 1976, said: "This chapter of the White Deer Township history concludes as follows: This is the story of a remarkably patriotic woman who expressed no regrets at the service she rendered freely during the Revolution.

'I would do it again' she would say in Pennsylvania Dutch, and then draw a whiff of the mild and fragrant Indian tobacco in her small brown porcelain mothers pipe many pioneer women uses.  She would add 'Bread cast upon the waters will always come back.' " 

According to Godcharles, the White Deer mill, "a fine modern mill" was built on the foundation of the mill the Widow Smith erected after returning from the Great Runaway.

Photo of the "new modern mill" in White Deer,  The second mill built by Widow Smith burnt down in 1850.  Henry High constructed a new mill in it's place.  That mill, shown here,  burnt down in 1928.

According to the historical marker, the Smith home was stone.  In a 1962 article in the Daily Item, "Many familiar landmarks have disappeared from the White Deer scene with the beginning of this project [the construction of Route 15].  Most notable was the historic "Widow Catherine Smith" home, a brick structure dating back to the Revolutionary Days, which was situated at the southwest corner of the White Deer intersection. "  The brick home can be seen behind the historical marker, in this 1956 newspaper photo.  [My only explanation for the discrepancy is perhaps the original stone home had a new brick addition added?]

The historical marker was originally placed in front of the Widow Smiths home, but it was moved, likely when the home was torn down and route 15 built.  In May of 1976, the marker was placed in the Catherine Smith Memorial Mini Park in White Deer, where it stands today.

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In 2018 Lou Bernard wrote a thought provoking piece for the Lock Haven Express, pointing out that there is no documentation proving any of the Catherine Smith story.  In it he mentions her burial in a cemetery in McElhatten, which is contrary to everything  I read about her being buried in what is today White Deer, but ignoring that, he does raise some valid concerns.  Perhaps someday I will spend more time researching the records - if she went to Philadelphia 13 times, there should be some record in the state archives.  Several historians use the phrase "in the records", but I do not know what records they referred to. Read Bernard's story here: https://www.lockhaven.com/news/community/2018/03/the-unknowable-widow-smith/

"  Prior to the establishment of the mill at the mouth of McElhattan Run, Catherine Smith and her husband Peter Smith, had run a trading post on the Great Island,  having come there about 1768. A descendant of Catherine Smith . . told me that Peter and Catherine, the pioneers, were the persons who first bought the Great Island from the Indians. About 1773: after her husband's death. she sold it to William Dunn . After the sale to Dunn. which showed a profit, Widow Smith set up her sons in the milling business at McElhattan Run . It was about then that Widow Smith decided to go down the river to the  mouth of White Deer Creek, where her husband had a claim for 300 acres, her mind filled with various enterprises. Too much historical mention cannot be accorded to this most remarkable pioneer woman, who was treated with injustice in her lifetime and ruled off history's pages after her death" - Shoemaker, Now and Then Column in 1936

In order to forge a rifle barrel, a bar of iron was heated and hammered into a flat shape, the dimensions of which (length, width and thickness) were determined by the ultimate size of the rifle barrel. A rifle barrel could be up to 48 inches long. The flattened metal was shaped around a steel rod until the edges overlapped and could be welded together by heating successive small sections. Through repeated heatings and hammerings, it would in the end appear that the barrel was made from a solid piece of iron. The interior of the barrel could be enlarged for different caliber sizes.

"The family that we have the most knowledge of is that of the Widow Catherine Smith.  In 1773 her family settled along the White Deer Creek in what is today Union County but was at the time in Northumberland County.  Some sources point to the family as having moved to the area from Lancaster Co., and others from Berks Co.  Linn states she was the wife of Peter Smith that some believe was a gunsmith from Berks County.  Jacob Smith (born in Berks Co.) is believed to have been her son and he later worked in what is today Beaver Township, Snyder County.  Many other Smith gunsmiths in the area and elsewhere descended from this lady.  Dr. Whisker in Arms Makers of Pennsylvania notes that the daughter of Peter Smith, Catherine, married Adam Specht and they had three sons who were all accomplished gunsmiths.  It is obvious that this family was not only early but also influential in the development of rifles in the area." - Earliest Susquehanna Gunsmiths

Widow Catherine Smith “built a stone house on this site [in White Deer, Union County] in 1774, operating saw and grist mills . . . During 1776, she completed the boring mill where a great many gun barrels for the Continental Army were manufactured.” - https://palaborhistorysociety.org/timeline-of-labor-history-in-pennsylvania/

Smith (Shmidt) ,Catherine – ca.1780 – White Deer – The Widow Catharine Smith is a well documented maker of gun barrels at her mill in White Deer Township.  Several sources identify her as having been married to Peter Smith while living in Berks County, and they had several sons who later became gunsmiths.  Peter died in 1773.  Whisker states that the Specht gunsmiths of Beavertown were descended from the Widow Smith.  The birth and baptismal certificate of Elias Specht states that his mother was a Shmidt (the German variation of Smith).  This would indicate that the Widow Catharine Shmidt came out of the German gun making tradition and some descendants continued to use the German form of Smith well into the 1820’s.  Many of the areas finest gunsmiths seem to have a connection to the White Deer area, and it may be because of the Shmidt/Smith family.  As some of this area (Gregg Twp.) was at times in Lycoming County and later in Union County, it has not always been included in research of the Union and Snyder County areas. -Dennis Glazender, American Long Rifles Forum

There is a a portrait of Widow Catherine Smith by local artist John Reynolds

The Miltonian, September 1926

In Union Co, PA, a story handed down was that Catherine Smith was the most beautiful girl of her day to walk White Deer Valley. She and her husband, Peter, came to the Valley about 1769 from Lancaster County, with their ten children and bought the Great Island in the Susquehanna river from the Indians. In 1772 they squatted on a site at the mouth of White Deer Creek (McElhattan Run), whose title was claimed by Jesse Lukens, but it is rumored they bartered with the Indians for the property. Soon her husband and three sons died, probably killed by the Indians in 1779 or before. Smiths' built a grist mill, sawmill, and a boring mill to rebore guns and perhaps forged rifle barrels for the Revolutionary War and the Indians burnt it down in 1779, possibly at the behest of the English. She hid in a hollow tree to escape being captured by the Indians.

She rebuilt the flouring, hemp and saw mills only to be told that new owners Messrs. Claypool & Morris claimed her property at McElhattan Run. It is reported Catherine, over the years walked to Philadelphia thirteen times trying to get title to the land they were settled on. Money and politics from others outmaneuvered her and she lost possession. She smoked a pipe of Indian tobacco, had rather prominent front teeth, black hair, was about 5 feet tall, and always with a pleasant expression. She was buried in the "Old Settlers" graveyard, but remains were disturbed and reinterred to another unmarked location nearby. The State Geographic Board dedicated the eastern culmination of the Nittany Mountains and called it "Catherine's Crown."