Click Back                                  SMITH, JAMES VERDERIE- "J.V."-"JIM"

   Was born in 1864 near Smith's pond on present day Fallaw Rd.. He grew up and lived in his father's house, John James Smith, near the dam.
   Legend tells that the Smith house  was almost completely built when Sherman's "Yankee" army came thru on their way from Savannah, Ga. to Columbia, S.C. during the  civil war. Being a big new two story house, with a well for drinking water and a near by creek, Bull Swamp, to water horses the Northern Army occupied the house as a dispensary or field hospital in which to leave sick or wounded troops.
   Mr. Jim Smith was a local school teacher. He is said to have taught at Crossroads, Swansea, Athens and Macedon Schools.
   He taught Mr. Moultaie H. Dykes Sr., born 07 Oct.1884, at Crossroads between 1890 and 1897. As long as he lived, Moultaie Dykes remembered Mr. Jim giving him a serious spanking. It seems that the old teachers did not "spare the rod and spoil the child.".
   Mr. Jim was said to be teaching at the New Swansea School in 1897. His nephew Boynton Elmore Craft, born 16 Feb. 1883, was helping Mr. Jim, as a older student, to tutor the younger students. That school was at the site of the old Gulf station, at the Swansea red light. The school location moved four times before 1917. 
   Mr. Jim later taught at Athens School. His oldest son R. Milo Smith, born 10 Jan. 1901, tutored at Athens. Milo become a lawyer an a State Senator,  locally know as " The Bullswamp Senator.
   Mr. Jim ran the local grits mill located near his house by the Smith's pond dam. In His later years Mr. Jim suffered a stroke on one side. Older local folks still remember "Mr. Jim" walking from His nearby house, down the hill, to the Smith's Pond Grits Mill. He would grind your corn and just take one scoop of the ground-up corn as his pay or toll.
   Mr. Jim died in 1940, he is buried at Sharon Crossroads United Methodist Church Cemetery.
   Mr. Jim Smith's father, mother, some sisters & brothers, grandmother and grandfather (born in 1810) are buried at the Smith-Craft Cemetery, at the edge of the old Smith property. A land survey plat made about 1900 shows four Smith Family houses on their large property along Bull Swamp Creek.
   I remember seeing just the Smith's mill grind stones laying on the hillside below the pond dam, as a boy, in1950's. Would like to know when that old grits mill was built. Smith's pond was " the local swimming hole".
I have a picture of folks swimming  there in about 1926. Old boat house still remains but tilted.
   Smith's pond is near the head waters of Bull Swamp Creek.
   Many a fine bass fish were caught at Smith's pond. Fish was fried along with catfish stew enjoyed on the banks of Smith's pond.
   The good old days when the pace of life was slower.
   The two-rut dirt road between Smith's pond and #6 Hwy. was a main country road because it was the old mail-road.

   Information for this article was written by Davie Craft.
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