Courtship Years

• Charles Augustus Smedberg (1781-1845) (shown here at age 45) was born in Sweden. His family were prominent bankers and merchants. He came to New York in 1812 as a representative of the Bank of England. 
• While in New York City, he met and married Isabella Renwick and like many enterprising young men became an importer or merchant of goods from overseas. The family lived among other leading merchants along Beech Street in what is now lower Manhattan. 

 In 1854, a young couple stepped off a train in Charlotte, North Carolina. Their names were Jane Renwick Smedberg and John Wilkes. Family and friends called them Jeanie and Jack. The bride had grown up in New York City, and the groom had grown up in Washington, DC, until he joined the Navy in his teens. 

Israel Wilkes (1722-1805) was the son of an English distiller, Israel Wilkes, and his wife Sarah Heaton Wilkes. His uncle was the famous British radical, John Wilkes. Israel, the younger, married Elizabeth DePonthieu (1727-1802), and the couple settled in New York City. They had three children including John de Ponthieu Wilkes (1755-1818) who married Mary Seton (1767-1801) in 1782. John was a successful banker and  became a prominent  fixture in New York society. John Wilkes and Mary Seton Wilkes had five children.

With the death of her husband, Isabella Smedberg, seen here on the left with her two youngest children, Renwick (right) and Charlie (left), found her financial circumstances reduced. Nevertheless, she managed to maintain some social standing, continued to make social calls with either her older daughter Agnes or her youngest daughter Jeanie. In addition, she was able with the assistance of her brother, Professor James Renwick, to send four of her six sons to Columbia College (after 1896, “Columbia University”). All four graduated and entered into a profession.