Calvin Smith (December 1768November 7, 1840) was an American plantation owner. He arrived in the Natchez District of West Florida with his Loyalist parents in 1776. He was the 10th of 12 children.[1] He received a land grant in 1791, and was one of three Smith brothers to marry one of three Cobb sisters of Wilkinson County. He eventually owned a 22-room house on a plantation called Retirement in the Second Creek neighborhood, about 10 miles below Natchez, Mississippi.[2] He also owned or leased Springfield plantation for a time. He owned Monmouth from 1820 to 1826. He and his brothers had "founded large and influential families,"[3] and he became one of richest and most important planters in the region. He was suggested as a candidate for the U.S. Congress in 1820.[4]
One of his slaves was James Roberts, an American Revolutionary War veteran from Maryland, who later published a slave narrative about his life. Roberts wrote:
There was a criminal inquest into the cousin's death. Smith denied writing the letter ordering the lashes and fired the overseer for having the temerity to produce the letter to the authorities. There were no consequences for either Smith or Holdcloth.[5]
Smith was an early source on the history of Natchez, with his account of early settlements appearing in the Western Messenger in 1838.[6] [7] When Smith died at his home in Mississippi in 1840 he was described in brief obituaries as "old and very respected"[8] and as "one of the oldest and most highly respectable inhabitants" of Adams County, Mississippi.[9]