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Below is a family biography included in Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York published by John M. Gresham & Co. in 1891.  These biographies are valuable for genealogy research in discovering missing ancestors or filling in the details of a family tree. Family biographies often include far more information than can be found in a census record or obituary.  Details will vary with each biography but will often include the date and place of birth, parent names including mothers' maiden name, name of wife including maiden name, her parents' names, name of children (including spouses if married), former places of residence, occupation details, military service, church and social organization affiliations, and more.  There are often ancestry details included that cannot be found in any other type of genealogical record.

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DAVID SMITH, JR., was a man of fine and commanding appearance and with a disposition which attracted friends. He was a son of David and Phebe Smith, and was born in Otsego county, New York, March 9, 1815. David Smith, Sr. (father), came to Chautauqua county where the virgin forests stood where fertile fields now bear cereals, succulents and grasses that furnish food for countless sheep and cattle. He was a minister of the Congregational church and was a son of an old Revolutionary officer and had a brother, also a minister, but of the Universalist faith. Mr. Smith married and had five children. He was an active Mason and the first person to be buried with Masonic honors in this county.

David Smith, Jr., was possessed of good natural ability and was well educated, although the common schools were the fountain source of his knowledge. He lived in Chautauqua town and owned a large farm of two hundred and fifty acres in Hartfield besides a tract of timber lying between Mayville and Westfield, all of which he disposed of and removed to Jamestown about the year 1870, where he engaged in the dry goods business conducting it until 1881.

He married Julia Wingert, a daughter of John and Catherine (Frank) Wingert, the former a native of Somerset county, Pa., who removed to Cumberland county, Md., and engaged in milling; and wool carding and at one time owned three hundred acres of land. He had six children at the time of his death, which occurred in Maryland. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were the parents of six children: Andrew J., married Savina Wood and lives in Westfield, this county, following the business of a traveling salesman; Julia is the wife of P. E. Slocum, a merchant of Lancaster county, Ohio; David, a traveling man for the North American Photograph Co., married Rose Smith and at present resides with his mother; Moses (dead); Arthur E., a. Jamestown dentist, married a Miss Fairbanks; and Nettie, who lives in Brooklyn, N. Y., where her husband, Daniel Taturn, is a cotton goods broker.

He was a republican, and actively engaged in political matters, and died July 23, 1883. Mrs. Smith now resides at her beautiful home in Jamestown.

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This family biography is one of 658 biographies included in Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chautauqua County, New York published in 1891. 

View additional Chautauqua County, New York family biographies here: Chautauqua County, New York Biographies

View a map of 1897 Chautauqua County, New York here: Chautauqua County, New York Map

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