L. Windsor Smith – Mid-1850s to 1860

Part of the ‘Smith family history’ series

In the mid-1850s Atlanta was growing and so was the Smith family. Born over 12 years after Robert Windsor Smith, Leonard Windsor Smith was born May 12, 1853 in Atlanta. Throughout most of his life he is primarily referred to as Windsor Smith.

Robert presumably was in school in this period, but I haven’t found any evidence of whether he attended any higher educational institutions or not. Larned was presumably working as an attorney in some capacity as well as increasing his real estate holdings. On June 4, 1854 Eveline gave birth to a daughter named Angel that apparently died in childbirth. A fractured gravestone commemorating Larned and Eveline’s three children that died young sits beside Larned’s and Eveline’s memorials. The following table reflects the best information I have for them.

Name	Birth	Death
Clark Smith	9/11/1845, probably Florida	2/5/1847, probably Florida
Charles Smith	4/30/1848, probably Florida	8/2/1849, probably Georgia
Angel Smith	6/4/1854, probably Georgia	6/4/1854, probably Georgia

I was able to locate tax digests that show Larned’s city property holdings to be fairly substantial for the time. The tax digests unfortunately also indicate that the number of enslaved persons has increased from 3 (in the 1850 U.S. slave schedule) to 6 by 1855. The table below shows some of the relevant columns from the Atlanta tax digests.

Year	Aggregate value of city property	Number of enslaved persons	Aggregate value of enslaved persons	Aggregate value of whole property
1855	$13,000	6	$2,250	$15,870
1856	$13,000	6	$2,250	$16,420
1857	$13,500	6	$2,250	$16,670
1859	$16,500	6	$2,250	$19,250

The oldest Atlanta city directory I could locate is the Williams 1859-1860 volume. Both Larned and Robert are listed in the directory as residing on Whitehall. Larned is referred to as an attorney in the directory.

On March 21, 1860 Eveline gave birth to her last child, daughter Eva Spencer Smith. Eva commonly goes by the name Lillie. She is nearly 19 years younger than Robert. On June 14, 1860, nearly three months later, the 1860 U. S. federal census and slave schedule enumerates the Smith household as follows.

Name	Age	Sex	Occupation	Place of Birth
L. W. Smith	57	M	Note Shaver	NY
Eveline Smith	40	F		VA
Robert W.	19	M	Farmer	FL
Mary K.	9	F		GA
Windsor	7	M		GA
Eva	2/12	F		GA

Note Larned’s listed occupation of “Note Shaver.” I’ve seen other references to him as being a “Capitalist” as well. The best definition of a note shaver I’ve found is “one who buys banknotes at a discount greater than the legal rate of interest.” Also noteworthy is Robert’s occupation listed here as “Farmer.”

As we saw above, the 1859 Atlanta tax digest listed 6 enslaved persons, but the 1860 schedule lists 4 individuals as follows.

	Age	Sex	Color
Enslaved Person 1	35	F	B
Enslaved Person 2	15	M	B
Enslaved Person 3	9	F	B
Enslaved Person 4	7	F	B

Abraham Lincoln was elected in the presidential election on November 6, 1860 and a little more than a month later South Carolina becomes the first U. S. state to secede from the Union. In the next post I’ll provide a brief contextual timeline of the events leading to the U. S. Civil War and yet another unexpected move for the Smith family.