Son of Thomas and Mary (Barker) Smith.
Husband of Eliza Chamberlain, daughter of Joseph & Abigail Chamberlain.

THOMAS LAURENS SMITH was born in Windham, Cumberland co., Me., Nov. 3, 1797. He descends (the fourth generation) from the Rev. Thomas Smith, who was the first regularly ordained minister in Falmouth (now Portland), and who was born in Boston, March 10, 1702, a memoir of whose life was published in Portland by William Willis in 1849. He married Sept. 12, 1728, Sarah Tyng, by whom he had eight children. The Rev. Peter Thacher Smith (grandfather to Thomas L.) was their second child.
He was born in Portland, June 14, 1731; graduated from Harvard College 1753, and settled as pastor of the Congregational Church at Windham, Sept. 22, 1762, their second pastor, the Rev. John Wright
being the first. He was twice married. His first by whom he had all his children, eleven in number, was Elizabeth Wendell of Boston, to whom he was married Oct. 8, 1765. Thomas Smith, their fourth child, and father to Thomas L., was born in Windham Oct. 2, 1770. Married Mary Barker by whom he had four children, viz., Tyng, Eliza Wendell, Thomas L., and Mary Ann, all deceased except Thomas L. His father died Feb. 27, 1802; his mother Jan. 12, 1846. After the death of his father, Mr. Smith went to live with his uncle John Tyng Smith, in Gorham, where he remained eight years. He subsequently learned of his
brother Tyng, the clothier's trade, and followed it for seven years in the town of Westbrook. His education was limited to the common schools of Gorham and Windham. With the exception of three years in which from 1832 to 1835, he was engaged in the lumber trade in the town of Standish. Mr.
Smith since his marriage, has lived and carried on a farm in the town of Windham, and since 1835, on the same place where he still lives. He married March 18, 1821, Eliza Chamberlain, daughter of Joseph and Abigail Chamberlain. Mrs. Smith was born Aug. 3, 1801. They have five children, viz., Mary Ann, born Dec. 10, 1823, died in Natick, Mass., Oct. 26, 1867; Edward Tyng, born Feb. 26, 1826, married Eliza Marston, of North Yarmouth; is a carriage manufacturer at Little Falls, South Windham; Wendell Thomas, born July 17, 1835, a private in Company F, 1st Maine Cavalry, died on David's Island, N.Y. while in service, July 21, 1864; Frances Elizabeth, born Aug. 23, 1837, living at home; Eliza Wendell, born May 26, 1842, wife of G.C. Hathaway of Natick Mass. In politics, Mr. Smith has been identified with the Whig and Republican parties. In religion he has entertained Universalist views. He has filled the office of justice of the peace, in Windham from 1823 to 1874. A longer continued term of office will be hard to find. He has filled at different times the offices of town treasurer, town agent, selectman, and superintendent of the town school committee. In 1829 he was elected county coroner; in 1830 deputy sheriff. He was president of the first temperance society in Windham. In 1861 he was elected representative for Windham and Scarborough. In 1874 he was elected trial justice, which position he still holds. In 1873 he published a history of Windham. Having been a resident of the town twenty-three years, while it was a part of the province of Massachusetts, and for more than a half-century after the province had become the State of Maine, and having filled nearly every office within the gift of its people, Mr. Smith could fittingly appropriate to himself the language of Æneas of old "... quaeque ipse ... vidi, et quorum pars magna fui."
Source:
History of Cumberland Co., Maine
With illustrations and Biographical Sketches
Philadelphia
Everets & Peck, 1880
............................................................................