My Genealogy Hound

ERASTUS SMITH, a retired capitalist, at Ravenna, Buffalo county, Nebr., was born near Shelbyville, Ind., August 3, 1830, and was reared on a farm until seventeen years of age. He received his education at the common schools, and at the seminary in Shelbyville, in which latter institution he studied civil engineering, following this as a profession for many years, and helping to locate and build a number of railroads. His father, Jonas Smith, was a native of Vermont and a farmer, who moved to Indiana in 1818, and settled near Shelbyville, where he ended his days in 1852. His wife, the mother of Erastus, was Abigail, daughter of Elisha Mayhew; was a native of Maine, and both of English descent, the ancestors having come to America before the Revolutionary war. The children born to Jonas Smith and wife were twelve in number, of whom Erastus is the fourth.

At the age of twenty-four years, Erastus Smith went to Iowa and entered four hundred acres of land near Des Moines, lived there two years, and then sold out and came to Nebraska, in 1856, and located in Omaha, where he was engaged in real estate business until 1858. He then became a commercial traveler, and when the war broke out, in 1861, he was at Burning Springs, West Va., in the interest of oil wells. Of course, his business was brought to a standstill through the war. Mr. Smith then went to Polk county, Iowa, and for several years taught school, and for ten years engaged in farming. In 1874, he came back to Nebraska and settled his homestead on the northeast quarter of section 8, township 12, range 14, and at once began improving for a farm and cattle ranch; he also located a timber claim, and bought five hundred and forty acres of railroad land in addition, and continued farming and stock-raising in later years, keeping on hand an average of one hundred and fifty head of graded Durham cattle. January 1, 1886, the Burlington and Missouri River Railroad Company began to push their road through, and the same month Mr. Smith sold to the Lincoln Land Company a two-third interest in a section of land for a town site, he retaining every third lot. The town was laid out in June, 1886, the first lots were sold in July, and Mr. Davis, banker, erected the first building. The town has had a steady and healthy growth, the population on January 1, 1890, being about one thousand. The sale of lots and land by Mr. Smith has placed him in most comfortable circumstances financially, and he has retired from active business, with the exception of looking after his town interests, as he has some buildings for rent or for sale. Mr. Smith is the pioneer of his township, and about his first experience was the loss of his crop by grasshoppers in 1874 and 1876, which disaster, at that time, was a serious, loss, but he possessed indomitable courage and energy, and went to work to recover his fortune, and it will have been seen that in this he has been successful. His neighbors in the early days were but few, and for several years his children were the only children within nine square miles, with section 8 as its center.

In 1864 Mr. Smith was married, in Iowa, to Miss Mary J., daughter of Aaron and Mary J. (Dudley) Pearson, of New England. Mr. Pearson was a cattle dealer, and died in Iowa in 1874. The marriage of Mr. Smith has been blessed by the birth of five children, as follows — Laura, who is married to Charles Davidson; Mary B., married to F. P. Boyd; Charles D., who died in December, 1886, at the age of seventeen years; Eva E. and Clara, at home. Mr. Smith in politics is a republican, and while a resident of Iowa was a member of the Masonic fraternity, but the absence of Masonic lodges in the West caused him to become delinquent, and he is now non-affiliating.

Mr. Smith does not owe his prosperity simply to good luck; it is the result of his own foresight and prudence. His early experience as a civil engineer on railroads, and the geography of the country before him, satisfied his mind that a railroad would be run to the Northwest, and he located his land with a view of availing himself of any benefit that might accrue from its construction. He has not reasoned in vain, nor has he been disappointed. The road has been built, the town is here, and wealth has resulted to reward his sagacity and business tact.