Ann Smith was the second or third wife of Buckner Pittman. Jesse Pittman's mother was reported in family records as dying in childbirth. Buckner reported eight children in his 1803 family letter from Miss, three or four of whom were married. Any children from a marriage to Ann Smith would have been younger than 17, so it is unlikely that three of them would have been married.

Susie Wood Smith submitted this narrative:
Buckner Pittman was married to my ggg-aunt, Ann Smith (also sometimes listed as Nancy, the name of her mother). Ann was born in Pennsylvania & came down the Ohio with her parents & sisters in 1785. Their father, H. Smith, was killed by Indians en route to the Falls of the Ohio at Fort Washington (present-day Cincinnati). They had stopped at Fort Washington to let their cattle out to pasture. One of the cows didn't return & H. Smith & his brother-in-law went to retrieve it, having heard the cowbell in the distance.
The cow had been captured & the Indians were ringing the bell to bring the men closer to them. When H. Smith realized the ruse, he ran - apparently he was quite an athlete & nearly got away - but he was shot while jumping over a wide ravine. The family continued downstream. At one point, Nancy Smith, wife of H. Smith, threw her body over her girls during another attack on the river & somehow they floated to safety. They soon reached Louisville at the Falls of the Ohio, but quickly moved over the river to the Clarksville area. Ann was scalped on the banks of the Ohio in Clarksville & left for dead. However, she did bite her attacker on the calf before passing out. Her hair, which had been nearly completely removed from the top of her head, grew back in white & coarse as a horse's mane. A woman in Clarksville had a braid of that hair up until the early 1900s. I am still in search of it - in hopes that someone passed it down.


Nancy was about 16 years of age at the time of the scalping, and later she married [Buckner] PITTMAN. PITTMAN was a Virginian, and had served in a military organization known as The Rangers [he actually served under Capt. Robt. GEORGE and George Rogers CLARK in the winning of "The West", or the Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio territory]......He received patent for 500 acres of land, this he sold for a trifling sum, as did many others. After being discharged from the service, he remained in Clarksville awaiting for the springtime weather before starting for his Virginia home, bidding acquaintances and Clarksville farewell. He mounted his horse, crossed the river below the Falls and , as he led his horse off the boat, the horse fell, injuring him so badly as to make him useless. PITTMAN returned to Clarksville and later m. Nancy [Ann] SMITH [m. Jan. 14, 1786 in Louisville, KY], and several years later, with his wife and children, left in a flat boat. They floated down the Mississippi, and years after were located on Fairchild's Island, near Vicksburg, Mississippi. The mother of Mrs. Julia MACKEY, nee MORRISON, of Utica, had in her possession for several years, a lock of white hair, coarse as the mane of a horse, taken from the new growth of the scalp on the head of Nancy SMITH. William MORRISON, father of Mrs. MACKEY, fought under Gen. JACKSON at the Battle of New Orleans. He settled in Utica about the year 1823, dying there about 1867. He deserves a place in frontier history.

Nancy SMITH, mother of Margaret, wife of James Noble WOOD, d. Aug. 10, 1828, aged 102 years. At the age of 96, she bought a new spinning wheel. A neighbor wished to borrow it and the old lady refused to loan, saying, "I've owned several wheels. Other people borrowed and wore them out. I intend to wear this out myself."

This story comes from Baird's History of Clark Co., Indiana, pp. 897-901. Comments by Susanne Wood Smith, a direct descendant and family historian for nearly 20 years.

• Married: 14 Jan 1786 in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky ¹
• Note: Reference Number:51179
• Change Date: 17 Jan 2004

1. Jesse Pittman b: 8 Dec 1789 in Virginia Statehood 1788

1. Abbrev: cd 229, Dec 1994 Edition, Banner Blue, GRS 3.04
   Title: cd 229, Dec 1994 Edition, Banner Blue, GRS 3.04