My Genealogy Hound

William Smith, an enterprising farmer and merchant of Bloomington, was born in Gasconade County, Mo., in 1835, and is a son of Isaac and Catherine (Hall) Smith, natives of Tennessee and Virginia, respectively. The parents were married in Tennessee, and soon after removed to Gasconade County, Mo., where they were among the early settlers, and where Mrs. Smith died, about 1862. In 1867 the family removed to Maries County, and the father died at Lane’s Prairie, July 3, 1881. The parents were consistent members of the Baptist Church for many years. William Smith was the third in the family of five sons and two daughters. He obtained but a limited education at the subscription schools held in log cabins in pioneer days, and began doing for him self when about twenty-five years of age. After the close of the war he settled in Maries County, Mo., and immediately engaged in the mercantile business at Bloomington, under the firm name of Sorrell & Smith, which partnership was successfully continued ten or twelve years, when Mr. Sorrell retired, since which time Mr. Smith has conducted the business alone, which has proved a lucrative one. He is a thoroughly enterprising man, and is one of the largest land-owners in Maries County, his acres numbering seven or eight hundred. He has a fine home at Bloomington, on a farm of 120 acres, which he devotes to stock-raising, sparing no expense or pains on the quality of his stock. In October, 1870, Mr. Smith married Mrs. Fannie Howard, nee Meade, who was born in Northern Missouri, and died in May, 1884, leaving one son, James E. In 1887 Mr. Smith married Irene, daughter of John C. and Martha Ann Wallace, of Lane’s Prairie, where Mrs. Smith was born. Mr. Wallace died in July, 1886, and his widow still lives at Lane’s Prairie. Mrs. Irene Smith died about eleven months after marriage. Mr. Smith is a member of A. F. & A. M., and a charter member of Lane’s Prairie Lodge. In politics he is in sympathy with the Democratic party.