Histories

Sarah Jane Smith , the eleventh child of Sterling and Mary was born just seven months before her father died in 1828. She was probably born in Lunenburg County, VA near Middle Meherrin Creek.

In 1831, at age three, she moved with her widowed mother, Mary H. PHILLIPS Smith, to Alabama. Family tradition is they moved with other families by ox-cart. Granddaughter Dora Ghidotti Thrasher stated that they landed near Meridianville, in Madison County, AL. This gives rise to speculation that the families followed the Great Valley Road from Winchester, VA to the Tennessee River near Knoxville, and floated the rest of the way on the Tennessee to the town of Cottonport across the river from Decatur, AL. The water route was a major entry into North Alabama.

Sarah's mother may have lived in Decatur for a while because she paid taxes on her VA land from Morgan County and obtained a license to marry George Kaeiser there in 1836. Sarah is shown without name on the 1840 Madison County Census for George Kaeiser (spelled Kizer), in the female age 10-16 category. She is also mentioned in the Huntsville, AL 1832 obituary of her brother Stanhope who died "leaving a brother, an aged mother and two little sisters."

Sarah Jane was married to Arthur Delap in 1843 in Madison County when only 15 years old. He died from a horseback accident and she married Stephen Clement April 6, 1848 in Limestone County. Sarah, Stephen, their infant Stanhope Clement, along with her Delap children, William and Artelia, are shown on the 1850 Limestone County Census; living on the land deeded by her step-father George Kaeiser in 1836. This farm was next her sister Martha Hamblen. The 1880 Census showed her mother, Mary Kaeiser living with he Clement family. With Stephen Clement, Sara Jane had five children, Stanhope, Mary, Neutonia, Andrew, and Tennessee, (known as Tennie; She was known to the A. N. Clement clan as "Aunt Ten".), from 1850 - 1863.

Sarah Jane was known to be very religious and "quite strait laced." On the "Births Record" of the family Bible there is an entry, "Born of God October 9, 1842; age 14 years, and 9 months Bethlehem". (This may have been the date and place that she became a Christian. It was just about six months before her marriage to Arthur Delap. This is probably her baptismal record --WDS) There is a corresponding record which fits her sister Martha. In the Piney Grove Baptist Church Minutes (undated but between 1868 and 1896) she is listed as Sarah J. Clement: (Dead).

Sarah Jane is known to have helped start and taught at the Zion Cedar Hill school in Limestone County, AL. It is thought that she taught at least two of her grand children, America Culp and Mary Jane Davis, at the school.

Sarah Jane's will, probated in 1893, after deeding one acre for a graveyard, parceled her land to her children, eleven acres each, except her youngest and unmarried daughter, Tennessee, who received "21 1/2 acres, house, garden, and c." Perhaps the "c" was an abbreviation for the cemetery.

Sarah Jane is buried next to her husband Stephen in the Delap/Clement Cemetery just east of the probable location of her mother Mary's unmarked grave. Sarah Jane's granddaughter Sarah Ghidotti Coulter spent Sundays as a child helping to care for the family cemetery and in 1984 identified the location she remembered for her great grandmother Mary's grave by a very old cedar tree. The cedar stump may still be there; however, the tree has been cut down.

More About SARA JANE SMITH:
Burial: Limestone County, AL, Delap/Clement Cemetary
Sarah Jane Smith was raised in Prince Edward County Virginia.
Mary H. Smith moved to AL after husband's death
She remarried in Morgan Co. AL to George Kaeiser-no children
She is buried in Delap/Clement Cemetary - No head stone