Daniel Smith (surveyor)

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Daniel Smith (October 29, 1748–June 16, 1818) was a surveyor, an American Revolutionary War patriot, and twice a United States Senator from Tennessee.

Smith was born in Stafford County, Virginia. He attended the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Becoming a surveyor, he moved to Augusta County, Virginia, becoming deputy surveyor of that county in 1773. He fought in Indian Wars and was made a major of militia. He became Sheriff of Augusta County in 1780 and was commissioned a colonel, fighting in some of the later battles of the Revolutionary War. On October 5, 1781, Smith was appointed "Assistant Deputy Surveyor" (presumably of the Southern Department under Thomas Hutchins) of the Continental Army (see Department of the Geographer to the Army, 1777-1783). At the close of the war he moved to what became Sumner County, Tennessee to occupy his land grant.

Smith surveyed what became the site of the town of Nashville, Tennessee. He was a member of the 1789 North Carolina convention which voted to ratify the United States Constitution. In 1790, President George Washington named him Secretary of the Southwest Territory. Smith was a member of the convention that wrote the Tennessee State Constitution of 1796, which came into effect with its statehood on June 1, 1796. Smith prepared the first official map of Tennessee.

Smith was later appointed as United States Senator when Andrew Jackson resigned from that position (for the first time), serving from October 6, 1798 to March 3, 1799. He was later elected to his own Senate term, serving from March 4, 1805 to March 31, 1809 when he resigned and returned to his Sumner County estate, Rock Castle, near Hendersonville, pursuing his agricultural and business interests until his death there, being interred in an adjacent family plot.

Rock Castle is preserved today as an historical landmark and one of the early examples in Middle Tennessee of a plantation.

Some of the biographical detail contained in this article is derived from the public domain Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.

Preceded by Andrew Jackson	United States Senator (Class 1) from Tennessee 1798-1799 Served alongside: Joseph Anderson	Succeeded by Joseph Anderson
Preceded by William Cocke	United States Senator (Class 2) from Tennessee 1805-1809 Served alongside: Joseph Anderson	Succeeded by Jenkin Whiteside