Jacob Beer Captured by Delaware Indians

Is Jacob Beer, who with his sister Rachael were prisoners of the Delaware Indians in 1788, the same individual as John Smith who lived many years with Indians and took the name John Smith because he did not know his birth name? Documents and DNA evidence say they are likely the same person.

For two decades I have been trying to find the parents of my 3^rd great-grandfather John Smith (c1778-1858). The problem is he was captured by Indians while very young and when he returned to white environs he know neither his white name nor where he was born. It has been said that he was adopted by a man named Smith and so he took the name John Smith.

In 2001 I submitted Y-DNA samples to Family Tree DNA and to Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation. In February 2008 I found an 18 out of 19 marker match to me at SMGF. It was a Beer, a descendant of Samuel, Jacob, Jacob, Samuel, and Ira Kessler Beer. And in July 2008 more extensive testing at Family Tree DNA shows John Beer, son of Ira, and I match on 65 of 67 markers, a very close match.

Northampton County, Pennsylvania records are of interest. Two abstracts read:

21 March 1782 Estate of John Beer, Lehigh Township, Widow Anne, children, Amos, Enoch, Adam, John, Moses, died in lifetime of father, left 4 children, all minors. David, Jacob, Rachel, Samuel, died in lifetime of father, left 2 children, under 14, Anna, Cleora, Elizabeth, w/o William Dieter, and Susanna.

20 March 1788 Estate of Moses Beer, died about 13 years, Lehigh Twp, widow, now wife of William Smith, now of New York, Samuel, eldest son, David, Jacob, Rachel, "the two last being at present prisoners of the Delaware Indians.”

These abstracts say that Jacob and Rachael Beer, children of Moses Beer and grandchildren of John Beer, were captured by Delaware Indians between 1782 and 1788. Although several Beer descendants say Jacob returned, I can find no documentation that he or Rachael did return. Many Beers moved from Northampton County to Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, perhaps as early as 1780. Lineage is complicated as there are at least two Jacob Beers in the late 1700s and early 1800s living in the same area that had sons Jacob. Some may have confused the captured Jacob with another Jacob Beer, and assumed he returned.

It is probable that my John Smith was captured about 1782 and returned after the signing of the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. If so, he spent about 13 years with Native Americans. About 1800 John Smith, married Phoebe Brown and they lived near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Their first child, John V. (my 2nd great-grandfather) was born there in 1801, and Diane in 1805. They moved down river to settle in Woods County, Virginia (now Wirt County, West Virginia), in 1808. They had four more children and he died there in 1858 and is buried in the Sheppard Chapel Cemetery in Leroy.

Stories of John Smith’s capture by Indians have endured for over two hundred years in my Smith family. Many branches of the Smith family have passed down the legend. I remember my grandfather George Edward Smith (1867-1941) telling me the story when I was about five years old. John A. House wrote of his capture in Pioneers in Roane County, West Virginia in 1906. Maude Irene Evens, great-granddaughter of John Smith, wrote of his capture in her 1954 A History of the Evans and Smith Families.

So, unless someone can prove otherwise, I say my 3rd great-grandfather was Jacob Beer, aka John Smith.

Dixon Smith, July 8, 2008