Hezekiah Smith (4/18/1763-4/26/1824)

Born in Delaware in 1763, Smith enlisted at the age of 16 in Granby, Massachusetts, to serve in the American Revolutionary War as a private in Col. Marshal’s Fourth Hampshire County Regiment. Following the war, Smith worked as a surveyor along the Ohio River. After he and Mary Ann Rector married, they moved to Kentucky. In 1820, they sold the farm in Kentucky and moved to Marion County, Indiana, where they became one of the earliest pioneers to settle in the county.

Smith died in 1824 and was buried in a cemetery near Trader’s Point (Pike Township) in Marion County. In October 1868, he was moved to Crown Hill. According to DAR records, he and his wife Mary Ann Rector were the parents of 11 children, including one named for Marquis de Lafayette.