The Ancestors of Amanda Louisa Mezo Smith

My second great grandparents, Washington “Logan” Smith and Amanda Louisa “Lou” Mezo. My great aunt Eva Lorene “Reenie” Smith Dial wrote “Pa Smith” and “Ma Smith” on the front and back of this photo.

88.54% confirmed or likely to be English

4.73% German

4.73% Irish

1.6% Scottish

0.4% French

The woman my grandma and her siblings refer to as “Ma Smith” was born Amanda Louisa Mezo, but the name on her gravestone is “Lou”. Lou’s maternal grandmother was a woman from Tennessee named Nancy Forshee - a surname that can be traced back to 1673 when Thomas “Forse” was born in what is now Brooklyn, New York. When Thomas was eighteen, his son Obadiah “Forchee” was born in the same place and ended up living in the Philadelphia area.

Right around the year 1800, Obadiah’s great grandson, John Forshey, migrated with wife Anna Weston from Pennsylvania to Sweetwater, Tennessee. I wonder if they migrated with a big group because today there’s a town six miles down the road from Sweetwater also called Philadelphia.

In Sweetwater, their granddaughter Nancy Forshee married John Riley Smith in 1844. But before long, the couple moved to Hamilton County, Illinois, where their daughter Sarah Angeline Smith was born in 1847. Sarah is Lou Mezo’s mother. And just like the paternal ancestors of Lou’s husband Logan Smith, John Riley Smith was born in North Carolina.

Craven County, North Carolina

One might think all the Smiths who ended up in Hamilton County, Illinois in the 1800’s are from the same family, but one might be wrong. While Logan’s ancestors are from the Virginia/North Carolina state line, Lou Mezo’s grandfather John Riley Smith was born in Craven County, which today is about a two and a half hour drive southeast from the spot where Logan’s ancestors lived. So although Lou Mezo Smith’s mother was Sarah Smith Mezo, it’s very doubtful that the two Smith families were related.

Brandenburg, Germany

Lou Mezo’s paternal grandmother was a Braden, and the Bradens of Hamilton County are the descendants of Thomas Braden, who was born in 1765 in Virginia. and later married in the same place. But after spending some time in Tennessee, Christian County, Kentucky, and even the Cape Girardeau, Missouri area, Thomas Braden and wife Susannah Oglesby settled in southwestern Hamilton County, Illinois around 1829.

Here’s the Braden School basketball team photo from the 1949-50 season. My grandmother (Lou Mezo Smith’s granddaughter) is Thelma Smith, #14. If you look closely, you can see the basketball says “BRADEN”. My grandpa says their colors were red and white.

The town of Braden and the old Braden School were located in this very part of the county, where Braden Valley Church still stands today. I’d say it’s a given that all of these places are named after Lou’s Braden ancestors. Thomas Braden is also the ancestor of Basketball Hall of Famer and former Braden School basketball star Jerry Sloan, whose maternal grandmother was a woman named Missouri Olzona Braden.

Here’s Lou Mezo’s father, Joseph Decater “Cate” Mezo. His first cousin was Jerry Sloan’s maternal grandmother, Missouri Olzona Braden.

Thomas and Susannah Braden’s daughter Martha went by the nickname Patsy. She was born in 1813 and married Lou’s grandfather, William Cozy Mezo, in Hamilton County in 1836. William’s father Moses is Lou’s oldest known Mezo ancestor. He was born in South Carolina in 1775 and died in Christian County, Kentucky in 1821. It appears that after Moses died, his widow and at least a few of her adult children moved to Hamilton County, Illinois. Among them was Lou Mezo’s grandfather William.

Lou Mezo Smith is middle left. This is the wedding of her granddaughter Eva Lorene “Reenie” Smith and William “Jill” Dial. The other old woman is Reenie’s other grandmother.

Ten years after Patsy Braden married William Mezo in 1836, their son Joseph Decater Mezo was born. He is Lou Mezo’s father and actually went by the “Cate” - a short form of his middle name. Cate served in the Union Army in the Civil War, and then married Sarah Angeline Smith in Hamilton County in 1865. The two of them had eleven children altogether - the seventh being Amanda Louisa Mezo, known to some as “Ma Smith”.

Logan and Lou Smith are pictured here. The woman on the far left is probably one of their daughters. Notice the dog in front.