Nathan Smiley — the Irish orphan raised by the Amish
Two independent accounts, no record yet
The Amish historian David Luthy (1973) and the family’s own Schrock Ramseyer Story (1986) tell the same story. No contemporary record yet documents the Irish birth or the foster placement.
The story. Nathan Smiley (1797–1872) was born in Ireland in 1797 to a British mother. At about four he came to America with her — through Philadelphia, says the family — and was left behind: “a red headed Irish orphan deserted by his mother.” An Amish family named Troyer in Somerset County, Pennsylvania “took him into their home and accepted him as a son.”
He joined the Amish church, married Anna Stutzman (mother of John Smiley (1822–1879)) and later Rebecca Margaret Miller, and in 1841 moved to Elkhart County, Indiana, among the first families of what became a major Amish settlement. He is buried at Elkhart Prairie Cemetery, Goshen.
His son John became an Amish Mennonite minister, had only daughters, and the Smiley name died out among the Amish. One of those daughters, Rebecca Smiley (1856–1932), was Al Ramseyer’s grandmother.
“Our foreparents came basically from Switzerland, one exception was Nathan Smiley who was an Irish orphan.” — The Schrock Ramseyer Story, p. 46
This is not the English-ancestor story Christopher remembers — that belongs to the Miller side: English ancestor recollection (Miller side).
To do
- Look for Troyer households in Somerset County, 1800–1820, with a boy named Nathan task/ai
- Get Luthy’s original article and his source task/human
- Check the 1850–1870 censuses for “Ireland” as birthplace task/ai
Testing a local alternative: the Scots-Irish Smileys of Somerset County (2026-11-01)
The question: was Nathan really a child brought from Ireland around 1801, or could he belong to the Robert Smiley family already in Somerset County, with “Irish” meaning Scots-Irish ancestry and “orphan” a later story?
What the records say about Robert Smiley’s family:
- Robert Smiley (1732–1810) and Rhoda Boyd (1748–1827) settled in Jenner Township near Quemahoning in 1780. Rhoda had been taken captive as a girl in a raid in Cumberland County (her mother and an infant killed), and was recovered about seven years later, around the time of Bouquet’s 1764 return of captives, the same event that brought back the Hochstetler boys (1764 Captives returned after Bouquet’s treaty). Sources: History of Bedford, Somerset and Fulton (1884), the 1906 county history, and the Somerset Herald (17 Jul 1895).
- Children named: Agnes (b. c.1774, m. Moses Fream 1791), George, Sarah, John, James, Robert (1884). The Herald (1895) says Rhoda bore “a large family”. John Smiley (1787–1839) married Jane Goset at Smithfield, Ohio, in 1815 (OGS Library acquisition list, 1991, citing “Smiley Family Research Data” by Elsie Smiley Sullivan and a Joan Smiley Eldred compilation).
- Robert signed Somerset petitions as late as 1805; lands on the Quemahoning in Jenner Township.
How Nathan fits:
- For a link: he first appears in 1823 in Conemaugh Township, which borders Jenner Township; he named his sons John and Samuel (Robert had a son John); Irish Smileys were rare among the German Amish.
- Against a link: no source lists a Nathan among Robert’s children; every account of Nathan says he was born in Ireland and brought over at about four (c.1801), long after Robert’s family arrived (1780); the Mennonite Historical Bulletin (2006) calls his mother English; Robert’s family was Presbyterian/English-speaking, Nathan was raised Amish by John Troyer, which fits a child without local kin.
- Possible middle ground: a grandson of Robert’s (born 1797 to one of his sons) whose parents died or left, with the “Ireland” detail added later. Nothing supports this yet.
Verdict: unproven, unlikely as a parent–child link, possible as wider kin. The Somerset Smileys are a real, nearby Irish family, so they are the first place to look for Nathan’s origin, but the stories as recorded don’t fit him into Robert’s family.
Tests that could settle it:
- Robert Smiley’s will or estate (d. 1810), Somerset County Register of Wills / Orphans’ Court: does it name a grandson Nathan, or a guardian for him? task/human
- 1800 and 1810 censuses, Somerset County: Smiley households with a boy 0–10 (1800) / 10–16 (1810); and John Troyer’s household with an extra boy task/ai
- Elsie Smiley Sullivan, “Smiley Family Research Data” (1989), Ohio Genealogical Society library: check for a Nathan task/human
- The Philadelphia customs passenger lists 1800–1819 (Tepper, 1986; lending-only online) for a Smiley woman and child, c.1801 task/human
About this research
Supporting documentation is linked throughout. This project is an exercise in AI-assisted research and development, and I haven’t manually verified every link or conclusion. All transcriptions and translations of Swiss parish records were made with AI, and their accuracy should be treated accordingly.