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History
of Smith County
Established December
23, 1833, Smith County is located in the south central
part of Mississippi from the last of the land of the
Choctaw Indian Cessions. Under the Treaty of
Dancing Rabbit Creek, (September 27,1830), this land was
divided into the following counties: Noxubee,
Kemper, Lauderdale, Clarke, Oktibbeha, Winston, Choctaw,
Tallahatchie, Yalobusha, Carroll, Jasper, Neshoba, SMITH,
Leake, Holmes, and Attala. Later the counties of
Bolivar and Coahoma were created.
Smith County's
outline is almost a quadrangle being 30 miles north and
south, and 22 miles east and west. The area is
approximately 660 square miles. It has the
following counties for boundaries: Scott to the
north, Jasper to the east, Jones and Covington to the
south, and Simpson and Rankin to the west.
Major David Smith,
for whom the county is named, was born in 1753 in Anson
County, NC. Smith served as a private in the
battles of King's Mountain, Cowpens, and Euthaw Springs,
becoming a hero of the Revolutionary War. He first
married in 1776 to Sarah Terry, and later, in 1791
married Obedience Fort. He moved with his family to
Mississippi, settling in Hinds County not long after that
region was yielded by the Choctaws. His son,
Benjamin F. Smith, served as the first representative for
Hinds County in the Mississippi Legislature. Major
Smith died at Jackson, Mississippi in 1834. Aurelia
Smith, his daughter, married Governor Runnels.
The first county
seat located in Fairfield, just four miles to the south
of Raleigh, was soon moved to Raleigh, MS. Raleigh
was named for Sir Walter Raleigh, an author and English
Military and Naval Commander. There has been four
courthouses in Raleigh due to fires. After the first
courthouse burned, the Old Floyd Hotel was put to use as
a courthouse, only to see the same thing happen to it in
1892. This resulted in the loss of all of the
records for Smith County. A new building was
erected and again was destroyed by fire in 1912,
destroying practically all of the records. The
present courthouse was built in 1912.
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Neighboring Counties:
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will enjoy a visit to these Smith County Neighbors.
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