Elizabeth Bray Allen, born about 1692 at the Bray family estate at Middle Plantation, operated a large plantation in Surry County after the death of her husband Arthur Allen in 1727 that included the brick house that became known as Bacon’s Castle. In February 1729, she married Arthur Smith, a prosperous Isle of Wight County planter and proprietor of much of the town of Smithfield. The marriage contract secured for herself and her children the property that she owned and had inherited. After Arthur Smith died in 1754, his widow administered his large estate in addition to managing her own property. Elizabeth Bray Allen Smith established a £140 trust fund in 1753 to create a free school for poor boys and girls in Smithfield. Sometime between September 1761 and April 1763 she married a third time to a man surnamed Stith, whom she likely survived. Elizabeth Bray Allen Smith Stith probably died at her home in Surry County about the middle of February 1774.
Bray was one of two daughters and at least four children of Mourning Burgh Pettus Bray and her second husband, James Bray, who were married about 1691. She was probably born about 1692 at the Bray family estate at Middle Plantation, where Williamsburg was founded during her childhood, or at the nearby plantation of Littleton in James City County.
