My Genealogy Hound

HORACE P. SMITH is one of the young, intelligent and progressive farmers of Gibbon township, Buffalo county, who, having come into the county at a comparatively recent date, and availing himself of his opportunities, has secured a good start and is in a fair way to grow into a land-holder of means and a citizen of influence. Mr. Smith came to Buffalo county in October, 1878, looked over the country, went back home and returned in the spring of 1879 and located. He bought a small tract of land in section 27, township 9, range 14 west, lying three and a half miles southwest of the town of Gibbon, on which he settled and made improvements. Mr. Smith came west with limited means, and his first purchase of land was, accordingly, not large. He has added, however, to this by subsequent purchases, until now he is the owner of three hundred and seventy acres, all of which is under cultivation except a tract of eighty acres reserved for hay-land. Mr. Smith has made the money with which he has bought this land by his own labor. The improvements on it he has also placed there. It is well improved, desirably located, and, better than all, is paid for. This, of course, has not been done without much labor; it represents also good management. Mr. Smith is an industrious, thrifty, economical farmer, looks after the details of his affairs with great care, and studies the condition of his soil, its necessities and capabilities. He keeps considerable stock and sells but little raw material. He is careful to see that his annual income exceeds his annual expenditures by as large a margin as possible, and judiciously avoids debt. He has the proper material in his make-up to succeed. This material is not altogether a personal trait. To some extent it is a hereditary gift. He comes of good stock, and he has been properly trained. His ancestry will bear historical research.

Horace P. Smith is a son of George T. and Sarah (Farnham) Smith and a grandson on his paternal side of Parsons and Nancy (Waters) Smith. His grandfather, Parsons Smith, whose name in part he bears, was a native of Massachusetts, a son of a revolutionary soldier, and himself for twenty-one years in the service of the United States government. He was in the war of 1812, serving with credit to himself and fidelity to his country during that war, and afterwards continuing in the service in the regular army for years, a large part of which time he was in the United States arsenal at Watertown, Mass. After a life of great activity and usefulness, the best years of which were spent in behalf of his country, he died at the advanced age of seventy-four.

Mr. Smith’s paternal grandmother, Nancy Waters, whose father was also a revolutionary soldier and was killed at the battle of Bunker Hill, was a native of Massachusetts. She was born in a house which stood half in old Charlestown and half in Cambridge, and first saw light on the morning of the memorable day on which the battle of Bunker Hill was fought. It is a tradition of the family that only a half-hour before she was born a thirty-two-pound shot from a British cannon tore its way through the upper part of the house in which her mother lay and lodged in a beam overhead. Mr. Smith’s father, George T. Smith, was born in the United States arsenal at Watertown, Mass., September 7, 1818, lived there till thirty years of age, going thence in 1847 to Maine, where in February of the following year he married Sarah Farnham, of the town of Mercer, Somerset county, and there lived till 1866, except the time he was in the army. He went into the service late, enlisting March 17, 1864, and entering Company K, Thirty-first Maine infantry. His regiment was organized in March and April of 1864, and leaving the state the 18th of the latter month, it proceeded at once to Alexandria, Va., where it was assigned to duty in the 2d brigade, 2d division, 9th corps. In less than a month after it left home it went into action at the Wilderness and following that the engagements at Spottsylvania, Bethsaida church, Cold Harbor, Petersburg, Poplar Springs church, and all intermediate affairs, in all of which its losses were heavy. In less than one year’s time the Thirty-first Maine lost six hundred and seventy-four men, killed or wounded in action, three-fourths of this loss occurring in May, June and July, 1864. Mr. Smith’s father followed the fortunes of the fighting Thirty-first till the close of the war, being mustered out July 17, 1865. In 1866 he moved west and settled in Illinois, where he lived till 1882, when he came to Buffalo county, this state, following his son, Horace P., and settling where he now resides, in Gibbon township, on an adjoining farm to the subject of this sketch.

Mr. H. P. Smith’s mother, who bore the maiden name of Sarah Farnham, was born and reared in the town of Mercer, Somerset county, Maine, and is a descendant of a respectable, well-to-do family of that place. She is also yet living.

To George T. and Sarah (Farnham) Smith have been born a family of eight children, as follows — Waitstill J., Mary M., Horace P., whose name heads this article; George W., Tena A., Cora E., William A. and Nellie M. These have all reached maturity, and most of them are now married and are themselves the heads of family.

Horace P. Smith and Mary L. Mercer were married in February, 1881, Mary L. Mercer Smith being a daughter of Vernon T. and Nancy Rebecca Mercer, whose biographies will be found in this work. Mrs. Smith was mainly reared in Buffalo county, this state, her parents coming here in 1871. She has by long usage become familiar with farm life, and especially that part of it that relates to household affairs, her recollections running back to the sod shanty of the “seventies,” when what are necessities now were luxuries then, and the housewife’s ways and means of getting on with her economic duties were by no means what they are now, albeit they are none too luxurious at this time.

Mrs. Smith is a lady of intelligence and kindness, and possesses the greatest of all virtues, genuine hospitality.