Mary Smith

According to her son, Mary Smith was born in Kerry in Argylshire, Scotland around 1766. We know nothing of her father or mother, but her brother John commanded merchant ships out of London and died when his ship, a privateer called Swift caught fire in Kingston, Jamaica. He was unmarried. Her sister Janet married a skipper, Andrew McFarlane in May 1786 at Greenock.
Two years later, in December 1788, Mary married John Steel in Greenock.
They had two sons, John and James, both born in Greenock. John was born in 1789 but died of the pox when he was 20 months old. James was born in 1792.
Mary also brought up her dead sister's son John McFarlane, who was 3-4 years older than James. She may have done this on her own as her husband was press-ganged into the navy from a merchant vessel in the West Indies in 1793-4 and was away for nine years.
When he returned he was master of a sloop in the coastal trade and herring fishing for ten years before becoming ill. He died at Greenock in 1817.
Meanwhile Mary had educated her son and John McFarlane and they both went to work in the Customs House at Greenock.

We do not know if Mary remained in Greenock when her son James married and moved to Glasgow in 1825. She died in 1836 and was buried with her husband in the Inverkip Street cemetery in Greenock.