Hezekiah Smith, Revolutionary War Veteran

Hezekiah Smith, Revolutionary War Veteran
(April 18, 1763 – August 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, Hezekiah Smith worked as a surveyor along the Ohio River. After he and Mary Ann Rector married, they moved 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. 

He died in 1824 and was buried in a cemetery near Trader’s Point (Pike Township) in Marion County. In October 1868, his remains were moved to Crown Hill. According to Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) records, he and his wife, Mary Ann Rector, were the parents of eleven children, including one named for the Marquis de Lafayette, who helped the American colonies fight against England during the Revolutionary War.