Daniel Smith
Brigadier General, Tennessee Militia

Daniel Smith was born on 29 October 1748 in Stafford County, VA, and attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA.

Becoming a surveyor, he moved to Augusta County, VA serving as Deputy Surveyor of the County in 1773. As a militia officer, he helped defend the Virginia frontier during Dunmore's War and the American Revolution. He became sheriff of Augusta County in 1780 and was commissioned a Colonel in the militia, taking part in the later battles of the Revolutionary War, including Guilford Courthouse and Kings Mountain. On 5 October 1781, Smith was appointed Assistant Deputy Surveyor in the Southern Department of the Continental Army under Thomas Hutchins.

At the war's end, Smith moved to what is now Sumner County, TN, to claim the land grant for his military service. As County Surveyor, he surveyed what became the site of the town of Nashville, TN. He was prominent in local affairs and was appointed a Brigadier General in the Militia. He was a member of the 1789 North Carolina convention which voted to ratify the U.S. Constitution. In 1790, President George Washington named him Secretary of the Southwest Territory. Smith was a member of the convention that wrote the Tennessee State Constitution of 1796, which came into effect with its statehood on 1 June 1796. Smith prepared the first official map of Tennessee.

Smith was later appointed as U.S. Senator when Andrew Jackson resigned from that position (for the first time), serving from 6 October 1798 to 4 March 1799. He was later elected to his own Senate term, serving from 4 March 1805 to 31 March 1809, when he resigned and returned to his Sumner County estate, Rock Castle, near Hendersonville, pursuing his agricultural and business interests until his death.

Rock Castle is preserved today as an historical landmark and one of the early examples in Middle Tennessee of a plantation.

Death and Burial

Brigadier General Daniel Smith died on 16 June 1818 in Hendersonville, TN. He is buried at Rock Castle Cemetery in Hendersonville, TN.