W J Smith & Son Funeral Home

W.J. Smith & Son Funeral Home holds the distinction of being the oldest family-owned and operated business in the Tidewater Peninsula area. Founded on February 7, 1854 by Robert T. Smith—several years before the Civil War—the firm has remained under continuous family ownership for more than 170 years. The business passed from R.T. Smith to his son W.J. Smith Sr. in 1900, then to W.J. Smith Jr. ("Booker") in 1920 when the firm took its current name. Martha Smith Cecil joined in 1961, and her sons Walter and Doral Cecil currently manage daily operations alongside their children, who represent the sixth generation. A seventh generation has now been born into the family.

The funeral home operates from its Harpersville Road location in Newport News, maintaining the same commitment to neighbor-to-neighbor service that characterized its earliest days. In the 1800s, the family used a horse-drawn hearse on unpaved roads, hand-built pine coffins on-site, and returned home by oil lamp after all-day services. That ethos of putting families first—summed up in founder W.J. Smith Jr.'s manuscript as "giving sympathetic and knowledgeable help to troubled families"—remains the operational philosophy today.