Mendocino County Biographies

Mark T. Smith

Transcribed by: Pat Howard

This file is part of the California Genealogy & History Archives
http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~cagha/index.htm

 
	This worthy pioneer and estimable gentleman, whose portrait we 
take pleasure in presenting to our readers in the body of this work, was born in 
Goffstown, New Hampshire, July 31, 1830, and was the son of Benjamin and May 
Hartin Smith. When he was quite young his parents removed to Alton, Madison 
county, Illinois, and young Smith availed himself of the presence of a 
first-class educational institution in Upper Alton, Shurtleff College, now known 
to all her many thousand sons scattered all over the Union as �Dear old 
Shurtleff,� and attained an education inside its classic walls. June 12, 1846, 
he enlisted in the Second Illinois Volunteer Infantry, Colonel W. H. Bissel, for 
a twelve months� service in the Mexican war, and is one of the twenty-six who 
are now left of all the rank and file of that body of brave volunteers. He was 
mustered out in August, 1847, and returned to Illinois. He spent the time till 
March 21, 1849 on the Mississippi river, when he started across the plains for 
California, making the trip from Fort Hall to Coloma in nineteen days and three 
hours, he being accompanied by four men and eleven animals, and reached 
Sacramento with only three animals. At Carson valley they met Calhoun Benham, 
�Sandy� Brown and Humphrey Marshall. When they met they had a grand 
jollification, and ate up all their provisions, unmindful of the morrow. Those 
who crossed the plains with him were William Carter, Arthur Madene, George 
Greathouse and Charles Cheeney. At Weaverville Smith�s dress consisted of a pair 
of buckskin pants, hickory shirt, had that had gone to seed, and one boot and 
one shoe, and his money consisted of $7.50. He being one of Nature�s noble men, 
and so generous that he would go hungry, if necessary, to treat his friends in 
the best of style, he put down the $7 for a bottle of whiskey, and stowed the 
four-bit piece away in his pouch for a bite of food when he got hungry again. He 
proceeded to Coloma and there met a man from Illinois, with whom he worked till 
the fall of 1850. He then, with a party of fourteen, started on a prospecting 
tour through El Dorado county. In a place called Antonio ca�on they �struck it 
rich,� and in a very short time they took out $40,000. He then returned to Cold 
Springs and began merchandising. He then was prospecting for eighteen months, 
and in the latter part of 1852 he began as clerk in the hotel known to all 
old-time miners as the �Fourteen-Mile House� on the Coloma road. At the end of 
three years he went to Diamond Springs in El Dorado county, and engaged in the 
butchering business, which he followed till 1856. In that year he purchased 
eight thousand acres of the San Majilul grant, all of which he lost on account 
of poor title. In May, 1858, Mr. Smith came to Point Arena as agent for Don 
Leandro Lucco, the nominal owner of the Garcia grant. At the end on one year he 
purchased the shipping port at Fish Rock, where he remained engaged in the 
shipping business till 1861. He then sold his interests there and went to Yolo 
county, where he engaged in farming till 1865, when he returned to Point Arena 
and began clerking for A. W. Hall, remaining there till 1874, when he moved to 
his present home in Ten-mile River township, and is engaged in stock-raising. 
Mr. Smith is still the same genial whole-souled gentleman he was when he arrived 
in California, and is the soul of honor. In a word, he is in every sense a 
gentleman. In 1860 his neighbors honored him with the office of Supervisor, but 
he resigned before his term was out. He married Miss Carrie O�Neal, September 
22, 1859, who died June 10, 1865. They had two children; Jennie, born November 
16, 1860, and Carrie, born June 30 1861, and accidentally killed December 27, 
1877.
 
SOURCE: History of Mendocino County, California - San Francisco, Cal. Alley, 
Bowen & Co., Publishers. 1880 Pp. 623, 624