Meet some of Marion County’s pioneering families

This photo was taken c. 1926 in Flemington in northwest Marion County. Furman Eugene Smoak (March 1859-1940, is holding his grandson, George Ralph Smoak (1925-2019), with daughter-in-law Nancy Anna Melissia “Annie” Hornbeak Smoak (1904-1964) standing behind them. [Photo courtesy Annabelle and Nancy Leitner]

Home » Community

Posted March 20, 2025 | By Susan Smiley-Height, [email protected]

For those with an interest in the history of Marion County, there will be a free “Talking History” presentation at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, March 24, at the Reddick Public Library.

Noted local historian, Annabelle Leitner, will present “Roots: The Evolution of a Marion County Family.” The discussion will include information about four lines of a family that settled in the area from the 1820s to the 1920s.

“The program will discuss how one family whose different branches have settled and stayed in what is now Marion County as early as 1828 has evolved through the history of the county,” Leitner noted in an email message.

Among the names of those family members, in addition to Leitner, are Geiger, Priest, McGehee, Smoak, Ellzey, Edwards, Smith, Hornbeak, Chappell and Dinkins.

The Leitner Family Farm in northwest Marion County, where Annabelle resides with her sister Nancy, is on property members of their family obtained when Mary Nunnemaker Geiger and her husband Emanuel received an 1842 Armed Occupational Land Grant.

Jacob and Charlotte Souter Leitner settled in the area that would become Anthony in the 1850s, although there is indication that Jacob may have been in the area in the late 1830s, although not a permanent resident, Annabelle Leitner noted. In some histories that have been written about Marion County, they are often referred to as a pioneer family, having moved here from an area north of Columbia, South Carolina, called Cedar Creek.

Furman Eugene Smoak and his first wife, Katherine Rivers Ellzey, moved from Orangeburgh County, South Carolina, in the mid-1880s to settle in Flemington. He was a blacksmith, carpenter, miller and farmer. His first grist mill was steam powered and was located on Flemington Pond. After the mill burned in circa 1890s, he moved the mill and blacksmith shop to what is now the crossroads of County Roads 318 and 329. He built a new home with lumber shipped from South Carolina to his cousin’s store in the nearby town of Fairfield, called the Smoak & Gatrell Store. He also built the Flemington Store. Katherine, born June 11, 1862, in Bamberg County, South Carolina, died Oct. 25, 1924, in Flemington. Her uncle was Robert Marvin Ellzey, a Methodist minister, for whom the community of Ellzey in Levy County takes its name.

Jonathon Franklin “John Frank” and Dora Belle Morgan Hornbeak settled in Moss Bluff in the early 1920s. He was born in Alabama in 1878 and died in 1938 at Moss Bluff; she was born in Kentucky in 1881 and died in Valdosta, Georgia, in 1971. Both are buried at the Moss Bluff Cemetery. They were married in Sawyer, Kentucky, in 1899 in the Morgan two-story log house that had been built in 1807. They had 11 children and the two youngest were born in Moss Bluff. At Moss Bluff, the Hornbeaks planted a citrus grove and Mrs. Hornbeak and her younger children were awarded top honors for the “Best” Sea Island Cotton at the Florida State Fair in the late 1930s/early 1940s.

Part of the discussion on Monday will include information about ways to conduct genealogical research for those who want to learn more about their own family lines.

“If you follow our family lines, our cousins include Rosalyn Smith Carter, Robin Williams, Stonewall Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, among others,” said Nancy Leitner.

The library is located at 15150 NW Gainesville Road, Reddick. The program will begin at 10:30 a.m. It is free to attend.
To learn more, call (352) 438-2566.