One SMITH Family: (Part 3)

by Rocky Macy

(The first part of this series dealt with introducing a SMITH family who were residing in the South Division of Smith County, Tennessee, in 1850 and subsequently migrated Kentucky and on to southwest Missouri where they were located in Jasper County by the time of the 1860 census.  Although their parentage was murky, the children of the family consisted of between seven and nine siblings born between 1828 and 1849.  The second part of this series centered on profiles of the siblings in that family.  Part III, today’s offering, deals with the court battle over the estate of William C. SMITH, one of those siblings.) 

William C. SMITH was born on December 18, 1839 in Tennessee and passed away at his home near Seneca, Newton County, Missouri, on February 8, 1920.  He was eighty at the time of his death and had accumulated a fair amount of property, both land and personal items, as well as quite a few promissory notes covering loans that he had made to individuals, most of which had interest rates of eight percent.  William’s promissory notes included $2,106 which he regarded as “solvent,”  $2,094.63 which he deemed to be “insolvent,” and $1,158.50 which he saw as “doubtful” at the time of his death.

William also had savings certificates totaling $2,000 at the Citizens State Bank of Seneca,  as well as $300 in Liberty Bonds and $100 in War Savings Stamps that had been issued during World War I.  By local standards, he was undoubtedly seen as a man of consequence, and he appeared to be the “go-to” person when neighbors needed a quick loan.

William died a widower who had never fathered any children.   His siblings had also all preceded him in death.  But even without obvious heirs, William had a plan for the distribution of his estate.  Sometime in his final years of life William visited with an attorney and drafted the following will:

Last Will and Testament

Know All Men By These Presents,

That I, W.C. Smith, of the County of Newton, State of Missouri, being of sound mind and memory, do make and publish this, my Last Will and Testament, in manner and form following:

That I desire and request that all of my just and legal debts be paid.  That all of my property both real and personal of every description whatsoever be divided equally between the heirs of John A. Smith, A.J. Smith, Elizabeth Boyd, Mary Scarbrough, Martha Parthena Cline, and Sallie Ann Hankins, all to share and share alike.

All told, the heirs of William’s six siblings numbered fifty-three.  

The inheritors of the estate of William C. SMITH were determined in the following manner:  any surviving children of any of the six named siblings each received one share.  In the event that any of those inheritors had preceded William in death, their children became inheritors with one share of the estate each.  And, in the event any of the inheritors from that generation had preceded William in death - as was the case with a couple - their survivors each inherited a share.

To illustrate how the determination of who became an inheritor to the estate of William C. SMITH actually worked, I submit as an example the children of his oldest sister (and my g-g-grandmother) Mary Jane (SMITH) SCARBROUGH.  According to the obituary of their only son, Mary Jane and her husband, James Mayberry SCARRBROUGH,  both ”died young,” and probably in Texas prior to 1870.  They left behind four children who, incidentally, went to live in the household of William C. and Lucinda SMITH when their parents died.  Those four children were (from oldest to youngest):  Sarah “Sallie” A., Nancy Anthaline, Catherine, and James William.

By 1880 two of the children had disappeared from the public record - Sarah “Sallie” A. and Catherine.  Nancy Anthaline (my great-grandmother) had married Samuel James ROARK and started a family, and James William, then an adolescent, was still living in the William C. and Lucinda SMITH household.

When William C. SMITH died in 1920, Nancy Anthaline and James William should have each received one share of the estate of their uncle - but - James William had passed away nine years earlier in Kansas and left a widow and five minor children.   The resulting distribution gave one share to William’s niece, Nancy Anthaline (SCARBROUGH) ROARK, and one share each to the five children of James William ROARK.  Instead of being on an equal footing with her brother’s family, Nancy was to receive one fifth of the total amount that went to James William’s children.

By the time the Court finished counting the heirs, they numbered fifty-three, and obviously not everyone was happy about the number of people involved in the split.  What would have been a nice inheritance for a few, was turning into a pittance for the many.

Not long after William passed away and his intent for the settlement of his estate became known, a group of six of the inheritors filed suit in the Newton County Circuit Court to partition the other forty-seven inheritors out of the estate.  When the legal notices were posted in the local newspapers regarding the upcoming court action, my great-grandmother, Nancy Anthaline (SCARBROUGH) ROARK was always listed as the first of the six plaintiffs, leading me to suspect that she might have been the ringleader of the effort.

In my great-grandmother’s defense, it needs to be noted that she lived in William’s household at least from 1870 until her marriage to Sam ROARK (which occurred in William’s house) in December of 1876.   From that time on she also lived in close proximity to her Uncle William, and as he became older and more infirm, she was undoubtedly one of the people who helped to care for him.

But Nancy was not happy with the idea of splitting William’s estate fifty-three ways, and she, along with five other heirs, went to Court to try and get the will adjusted in their favor.  The six plaintiffs were (in the order in which they were listed in the legal notices):   1.  Nancy A. ROARK;  2.  Margaret L. SPARLIN;  3.  K.M. NANCE;  4.  Leo BURKHART;  5.  Pearl SELLERS;  and,  6.  John W. BURKHART.

The forty-seven defendants in the suit, again listed in the order in which they were presented in the legal notices, were:  

1.  M.F. SMITH;  2.  Bennett A. SMITH;  3.  J.C. SMITH;  4.  H.E. SMITH;    5.  Robert M. SMITH;  6.  Nannie D. DAVIS;  7.  Stella M. DOTY;  8.  Jim W. SMITH;  9. Thomas SMITH;    and,  10.  Newton SMITH.  

11.  Nannie RAMSEY;   12.  J.W. BOYD;  13.  T.D. HOUSE;  14.  Samuel H. RAINWATER   15.  Emily NICHOLSON;  16.  Lillie SHERER;  17.  Odell BURKHART;  18.  Lola BURKHART;  19.  Cleo V. BURKHART;  and,  20.  Dorris BURKHART. 

21.  Clarence SCARBROUGH;   22.  Sylvia L. SCARBROUGH;  23.  Nancy M. SCARBROUGH;  24.  Samuel W. SCARBROUGH;  25.  Theodore L. SCARBROUGH;  26.  J.W. CLINE;  27.  J.A. CLINE;  28.  Allie REED;  29.  Cassie CLINE;   and,  30.  Roy CLINE. 

31.  John CLINE   32.  Clarence CLINE;   33.  Oscar REED;   34.  Mamie SMITH;  35.  Ara WILLIAMSON;   36.  Lee F. REED;  37.  Alta QUICK;  38.George HANKINS;  39.  Andrew HANKINS;   and,  40.  Parthena HANKINS.

41.  Loula SMITH;  42.  L.C. HANKINS;  43.  C.R. HANKINS  44.  Alice GREGORY;   45.  Nellie WILSIE;   46.  Sadie SMITH;  and, 47.  W.B. HANKINS.

The Disposition of the Case:

Judge Charles L. HENSON of the Circuit Court of Newton County, Missouri, ordered  the land which was owned by William SMITH in Missouri, be advertised locally and then sold at the courthouse door by Sheriff George W. YADON.  That was accomplished and the proceeds, after debts were paid, were added to the estate.  The judge then ordered that the estate, once all of the bills were paid, be divided fifty-three ways and paid out in equal portions to each of the plaintiffs and defendants - as William C. SMITH had originally intended. 

The lots in Miami, Oklahoma, were not a part of the Newton County settlement, and a recent telephone call to the County Clerk in Ottawa County, Oklahoma, revealed that property had been sold for back taxes a couple of years after William’s death.

When all of the collections and disbursements were complete, there was a balance of $5,087.35 to be evenly split among the fifty-three inheritors, or approximately  $95.98 each.  And while that sum was not a fortune even by 1920 standards, it undoubtedly was a nice little windfall that many of the inheritors truly appreciated.

(Part IV of “One SMITH Family” will profile each of the six plaintiffs in the lawsuit over the estate of William C. SMITH.)