Hugh Smithwick was an early resident of North Carolina. He died before 1694. He was probably born in England and was married to Elizabeth. They were the parents of six children. Information on the descendants of four of them are included in this volume. He became a large land owner near the Albemarle Bay. Some of his descendants have become members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Descendants now live throughout the United States, especially in the southern and western states.
Chief among its contents we find abstracts of land grants, court records, conveyances, births, deaths, marriages, wills, petitions, military records (including a list of North Carolina Officers and Soldiers of the Continental Line, 1775-1782), licenses, and oaths. The abstracts derive from records now located in the state archives and from the public records of the following present-day counties of the Old Albemarle region: Beaufort, Bertie, Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Halifax, Hyde, Martin, Northampton, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell, and Washington, and the Virginia counties of Surry and Isle of Wight.