The Smoots of Maryland and Virginia

Harry Wright Newman was an accomplished author, genealogist, and historian.  He wrote over 18 books during his lifetime.

Below is an excerpt from the Foreword:

THE SMOOTS OF MARYLAND AND VIRGINIA

A genealogical history of William Smute,
Boatright, of Hampton, Virginia, and
Pickawaxon, Maryland, with a history of
his descendants to the present generation

by
HARRY WRIGHT NEWMAN

WASHINGTON, D. C.
1936

THESE chronicles relating to William Smute and his descendants were actually begun in the winter of 1922, when, as an idle and recently university graduate, waiting to be placed as a wage earner in the economic world, I occupied my leisure moments in seeking knowledge of my forbears and to prove the tradition that had been handed down from my elders. And during these fourteen years many hours were spent in untiring research into musty, dusty, and ancient as well as sometimes carelessly kept court records at more than fifty county court houses, besides many additional hours were spent at home in the attempt to untie numerous knots and to establish the parents of many-a-fatherless Smoot...

...And I am also particularly grateful for the aid of Mrs. Mary Turpin Layton--a granddaughter of Mary Adeline (Smoot) Turpin--a charter member of the Irving Wells Chapter, D. A. R., of Quantico, Virginia, one of the organizers of the Nanticoke Chapter, D. A. R., of Hurlock, Maryland, a member of the Daughters of the Barons of Runnemede, and an outstanding authority on the old families of the lower section of the Eastern Shore.

And it is with pleasure that I present these findings to the descendants of the distinctive family of Smoot, this first day of July, one thousand nine hundred and thirty-six.