Smith Family Cemetery

There is another Smith Family Cemetery in Naples, located not far behind Shepherd Memorial Park. This cemetery was on the original property of Revolutionary War Patriot Hugh Gourley. The property was bequeathed to Gourley’s grandson, Solomon Gourley Smith, who married Eleanor “Nellie” Love.
This couple had seven sons and two daughters.
Solomon Gourley Smith died in 1848. His wife died in 1891. The gravesites of the couple are in the Gourley-Smith Historic Family Cemetery within today’s Shepherd Memorial Park.
Three of their seven sons died serving with the Confederacy during the Civil War: John L. Smith, Joseph Franklin Smith and Samuel J. Smith.
Robert P. Smith married Laura Bryson, Lee Roy Smith married first Nancy Edwards and second Nellie Earle Seagle. Solomon G. Jasper Smith never married.
Neither of the couple’s two daughters, Eliza Rebecca and Catherine E., married.
One son, Andrew Wilson Smith, remained on a portion of the old Gourley-Smith property.
He married Sarah Elizabeth Ballard.
The couple and possibly some of their children are buried in a family cemetery located off Melissa Way off Rugby Drive, behind Shepherd Memorial Park.
The cemetery today is in the wooded backyards of people’s homes. Most all of the headstones in the cemetery are missing.
Andrew Wilson Smith was a Confederate veteran. He enlisted in the 56th N.C. Infantry Regiment, Co. G, Henderson Blues, on 7-1-1862. He was reported in and out of the hospital with various illnesses in 1863 and 1864. He was captured 3-25-1865 at the Battle of Fort Stedman during the Siege of Petersburg, a prisoner at Point Lookout, Md., and released 6-19-1865. He died in 1920.