Old Joe Smoot

As I was researching the Smoots in Lewis County, Missouri, distant cousins who unexpectedly connected with my Wagners another branch of my family there, I came across a clipping in the Canton paper about “old Joe Smoot, formerly of ‘Smoot’s Landing,’” a “gentleman of color” who died in 1876 in nearby Marion County.

An obituary for a black man in the local paper was rare in Missouri in the 19^th century, and it implied he had been well known and regarded, signaling I might be able to find out more about Old Joe’s story. “Smoot’s Landing” was on the Mississippi River on the property of the same Smoots I was researching in Lewis County, so I suspected that Joe had been one of their slaves before the Civil War.

I was easily able to confirm that Joseph was indeed owned by Henry Smoot from Henry’s will and a second more detailed obituary for Joe. Henry Smoot’s will in 1839 bequeathed Joseph to Henry’s son William, standard practice, but, curiously, with explicit instructions that if Joseph did not want to stay with William, Joseph could choose his master or who he hired out to.

I then spent the next few weeks searching online newspapers, court documents and history books of Lewis and Marion Counties and found a wealth of information that brought Joe to life beyond an anonymous listing in a slave schedule. Joe was anything but anonymous – born enslaved in Virginia and brought to Missouri by the Smoots, he was emancipated even before the Civil War, married and then freed his wife Sylvia, bought a house in Palmyra, adopted other enslaved children, and became a well-known individual in Palmyra, despite systemic barriers, including multiple arrests, court cases and draconian laws.

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