The family and servants fled into the house. They were obliged to stuff even the keyholes to keep out the infuriated bees. The oxen ran entirely away, and the fowls which were in coops in the wagon were stung to death.
The Rev. Thomas Smith died in May, 1789. Two years later, in December, 1791, his wife died. In October, 1791, their daughter Sarah, in her seventeenth year, was married to Benjamin Dabney. He was a widower with three children, though but twenty-seven years old. Sarah's step-daughter, Ann, afterwards married her brother. Major Thomas Smith. Benjamin Dabney had given up the family mansion at Dabney's Ferry, together with his patrimony, on his father's death, to his brother and his half-brothers, and he made his home on the York River at Bellevue, in King and Queen County. He had also, to some extent, used his own means in the education of his half-brother, James Dabney, and his wife's favorite brother, John Augustine Smith. Both young men received medical educations abroad,—James Dabney in Edinburgh, and John Augustine Smith in London and Paris. His kindness and trust were not misplaced. When his own early death deprived his children of a father's care, Dr. James Dabney and Dr. John Augustine Smith were the best friends whom his children had.
