Seeking Mary Smith…on the internet

There are two old graves at the end of my driveway. One of the headstones reads, “Here lies the body of Mary Smith, a heroine of the American Revolution, who died August 17th, 1829, aged 78 years.”

Who was she, and what did she do to earn the claim of heroism? I bought this house in 2016, and it is high time that I solve this mystery. For one thing, I feel like Mary and I are old friends. I talk to her sometimes when I’m out doing yard work. (I like to think that I’m building a rapport to protect against future haunting.)

For another thing, I’ve spent enough time pondering her epitaph that it’s rapidly turning into the plotline of a novel in my brain. Before I can write that novel, I feel the need to confirm or deny some of what I’ve imagined. So, our class is the perfect excuse to finally put Mary Smith at the top of my to-do list.

Because I am a human in the 21st century, I began this inquiry the way I begin all inquiries: with Google.

First Attempt: googled keywords “Mary Smith.”

I knew it was pointless but I just couldn’t help myself. What did I discover? Nothing. Well, I discovered about 5,000 obituaries for people named Mary Smith, but none of them died anywhere close to 1829.

Second Attempt: googled “Mary Smith Anderson SC.”

This time, I found a few dozen obituaries for people named Mary Smith Anderson. A couple of them lived in SC. All of them were from the last few decades, though. No dice.

Third Attempt: googled “Mary Smith Anderson grave.”

Huzzah! I found something!

My first hit was the Find a Grave website, and it showed the geographic location of the graves (my neighbor’s yard) and contained three unsatisfying sentences:

More than two graves exist at this cemetery although others were only ever marked with a field stone. While the graves are on private property, the deed gives rights of ingress and egress to the grave sites. While some state that this may be also known as the old Broadway (aka Bradway) Presbyterian Church Cemetery, it's not known for sure if this burial place is the same.

So, the main thing I learned from Find a Grave is that there are probably lots of graves there rather than just the two, and my efforts to charm my way out of a haunting are probably pointless.

A few hits down, I found a more intriguing source: a local genealogy website with a listing of the cemeteries of Anderson County. The page was mostly blank except for this quote:

In Broadaway township is an old forgotten graveyard, few graves are marked except by the usual rough boulder, but there is on with a tombstone bearing the inscription:  "Here lies the body of Mary Smith, a heroine of the American Revolution, who died August 17th, 1829, aged 78 years."  Who she was none seem to know.  Could she have been the Mrs. Smith who carried messages and comfort to Colonel Eliab Moore during the Revolutionary War?  Another grave has a tombstone marked John George, Esq., died November 4th, 1827, aged 78 years. - TRADITIONS and HISTORY OF ANDERSON COUNTY author Mrs. Louise Ayer Vandiver

Okay! Now I have something to work with. For one thing, I have the title and author of a local history book. I searched for the book: it was published in 1928 and has been out of print for years. I found a company online that would sell me an expensive reprint of it, but I figured I’d check the libraries first. Lander has an original copy in our archives, but the book cannot be checked out. I know that once I start reading I’ll get sucked in, so I need to find a circulating copy. Anderson County Library has several copies, although only a couple are reprints that may be checked out. So, my next big step is to finally go get an Anderson County library card and find this book.

I also have another name to research: Colonel Eliab Moore. Since he is a man, a military officer, and a dude with a weird first name, I suspect he’ll be much easier to find. Thanks, Google!

And then, my friends, I hit the jackpot. I found a 2015 article from the Anderson Independent Mail headlined “Revolutionary War heroine's grave being restored.” According to this article, Mary Smith came SC from Northern Ireland with her husband and two small sons, but her husband died aboard ship. She and her sons were taken in by the Moore family when they arrived in South Carolina and lived with them for several years. Her act of Revolutionary War heroism was delivering food and letters to Col. Moore during a military campaign. (You can check out the full story here!) Maybe Mary’s contribution to the war effort was a little bland, but other aspects of her story are fascinating! She never remarried and ended up buying a significant amount of land near here, making her one of the few single women to farm their own land in Anderson County in that era.

Since the article is just a few paragraphs, I suspect there’s more to know. I’ll get a copy of Vandiver’s book and share all that information with you in Blog Post 2!

After my fruitful run at Google, I decided to do a quick search of the Lander library databases. I didn’t expect to find anything specific about Mary Smith, but I wanted to cover all my bases.

As expected, Mary was nowhere to be found in the databases, and neither was Eliab Moore. However, I did find a number of articles about the Revolutionary War in South Carolina that might help me flesh out that part of my novel (if I ever write it). My favorite find was a book from 1908 that is available as a scanned PDF document: Documents relating to the history of South Carolina during the revolutionary war, ed. by A. S. Salley, jr., secretary of the Historical commission of South Carolina. It’s a collection of letters and treaties, and it gives me a sense of how Mary and her peers would have talked and written.

All-in-all, I’m well on my way!