1890 Buchanan and Delaware Counties History pgs. 500-504
Frank K. Smith. To the people of Delaware
county, among whom the subject of this sketch has lived for nearly thirty-eight
years, mention need only to be made of his name to recall to their minds who
and what he is. Wherever he is known, his reputation is fixed, his character established.
This article, therefore, is not written to introduce him to public notice; it
is written to subserve the more useful purpose of preserving,
in this register of Delaware county's representative citizens, a few facts
concerning his family history and personal career for the benefit of those of
his name and lineage, who may be interested in after years in such facts.
Mr. Smith,
like most of the earlier settlers of Delaware county, comes
of English extraction and New England ancestry. His grandparents on both sides, as well as his
parents, were natives of Connecticut, descendants of that sturdy, thrifty,
intelligent and patriotic stock on which fell the brunt of the battles in the
colonies' struggle for independence, and which has furnished the inspiration,
as well as the practical means, for working out many of the great social and
industrial problems which sprang into existence with the winning of that
independence, His father, Nehemiah D. Smith, was born in 1795, was reared in
his native state, Connecticut, served in the War of 1812, when only a lad, and subsequently
accompanied his parents West and settled in Erie county, Ohio, where he married
and resided many years, dying, however, in Lamoni,
Decatur county, Iowa, in 1879, in his eighty-fourth year, being then a citizen
of that state. Having been brought up in New England he was, in accordance with
the New England idea of training the young to habits of industry and usefulness,
apprenticed to the trade of a carpenter, joiner and ship-builder, and followed
his trade as long as he resided in his native state, but, on settling in Ohio,
gave it up for the more congenial pursuits of agriculture. He
was an industrious, frugal, plain, unpretentious man, devoted entirely to his
own affairs, exceedingly domestic in his tastes, and throughout life an
earnest, devout member of the church, giving largely of his
time and energies to the promotion of church
work. He belonged to the Baptist
denomination and served his church faithfully for many years in various
clerical positions, in addition to the general interest he took in
the spread of religious doctrine.
The mother
of Frank K. Smith bore the maiden name of Sallie Wood. She was a daughter of
Roswell Wood, an intelligent, respectable farmer and descendant of the ancient
blue-stocking stock of Connecticut. She was Nehemiah P. Smith's first
wife, he having been three times married. She was an invalid during the greater
part of her married life and died at the early age of twenty-eight, in 1828, in
Huron county, Ohio. She was a pious, exemplary
Christian woman - one who stood faithfully by her husband in his early
struggles in the then frontier settlements of Ohio, and gave him that valuable aid,
kind counsel and sympathetic companionship which a man receives only from the
wife of his choice. She left, surviving her, four children, two boys .and two
girls, only one of these, a daughter, Sallie, wife of Daniel Minkler, of Erie county, Ohio, now living, besides the subject
of this sketch. Nehemiah D. Smith married for his second wife, Miss Olive
Bailey, of Erie county, Ohio, who gave birth to four children, all
of whom are now living, and are named Chastina E.,
Henry C., Lizzie P., Burton G., all married and settled in Iowa.
In Huron county, Ohio, on the twelfth day of December, 1822, Frank K.
Smith, whose name is herewith presented, first opened his eyes to the lights
and shadows of this world in the primitive log cabin on his father's farm.
There his earlier years were spent in felling timber, hewing and chopping,
grubbing sprouts and splitting rails, ploughing and
sowing, flailing buckwheat and husking corn, and, in the social seasons,
attending the log-rollings and apple-cuttings common
to those times and that locality. The opportunities for
education at the rustic schools in those
days were not so attractive nor valuable as now, but, such as they were, it was
his privilege to avail himself of them. He attended school in
the old log school-house of traditional construction, with puncheon floor and
greased paper windows, where sitting on a rude bench with a slab pinned or
spiked to the wall for a writing desk he imbided the
waters of knowledge from the "master,"
who was frequently a "down-east Yankee,"
and whose familiar weapons of warfare on the strongholds of ignorance were
"Lindley Murray's Grammar," "Webster's blue-back spelling book"
and kindred elementary works, unknown to the present generation of teachers and
scholars. In this way he acquired what would then be considered
a fair common-school training. He
remained at home till he was twenty-one years old, and gave his father the
benefit of his labors up to that time. Stepping out then into
the current of the world,
he assumed the responsibilities of manhood, marrying in 1844,
and moving to Steuben county, Ind., where he purchased a tract of forty acres
of raw land, on which he settled and began the solution of the bread and butter
problem as the head of a family. He remained in his new home,
however, only about a year,
when, on account of
the unhealthiness of the
locality, he decided to return to Ohio, and, disposing of his place, went
back and settled in Erie county. He
resided in that county, engaged in farming,
until 1853, when his mind again turned towards the great West and he moved that
year to Iowa and took up his
residence in Delaware county,
where he has since lived. Mr. Smith drove through in a two-horse wagon from Ohio to Iowa, adopting the method of conveyance then common, and the only one
possible at that time. On locating in the county
he purchased in Coffin's Grove township a tract of land consisting
of one hundred and twenty acres, paying for it $6.50 per acre, and on
this he located, built his log house of the regulation dimensions and finish,
and at once entered upon the pioneer life of the then " far West." In
common with most of the farmers of the county at that
date, he met with reasonable success, and,
barring the privations and hardships which his
distance
from market and
other conveniences brought on him, he fared well and his interests
prospered. Mr. Smith has been steadily engaged in farming
since, and it is but truth to state that he has been identified with the best
interests and purposes of the calling he has filled and of the community where
he has resided. As might be expected, he has been called upon
to fill the usual number of local offices in connection with the administration
of the public affairs of his county and township, and he has discharged the
duties of these offices with credit to himself and satisfaction to those
concerned.
Mr. Smith
has not been as happy in his domestic affairs as he has been prosperous in a
worldly way. Few men are. Into his life have fallen some shadows. He married February
7, 1844,
taking as he then thought to share his life's fortunes Miss Elizabeth Minkler, a native of Erie county, Ohio, born in 1828. After bearing him for
fifteen years the cherished companionship which he sought with her hand, she
died at their home in Coffin's Grove township in 1859.
She left surviving her three children, two daughters and one son, only one of
whom, however, is now living. The eldest, Emily E., was married to A. J. Brown,
then of Delaware county, but is now deceased.
Eunice O. is the wife of Rev. J. W. Martin, a minister of the Baptist church,
residing in Troy, N. Y., and the youngest, Frank Kinslow,
died at the age of six.
Mr. Smith
married the second time on February 22, 1865, taking to wife Mrs. Cornelia J.
Craig, widow of Robert R. Craig, Mrs. Craig being then a resident of Delaware county, but a native of Ravenna, Portage county, Ohio. This lady was born November
27, 1839,
and is a descendant of one of the early settled families of the Buckeye State. Her grandparents settled in Trumbull county, Ohio, about the beginning of this
century. Her grandfather, Daniel Dull, a resident of Ohio at the opening of the war of 1812,
volunteered his services in behalf of the United States in that war and entered the army,
but died the same year and was buried at Fort Meigs, near Defiance, Ohio. He was of German extraction, the
name having been originally spelled Duhl. In Trumbull county, Ohio, on February
17, 1809, Casper
Dull, the father of Mrs. Smith, was born, having been the first
white male child born in that county. Mrs. Smith's mother, whose maiden name
was Jane Livinia Anson, was a native of Poughkeepsie, N. Y., born August
17, 1809.
Casper Dull and Jane Livinia Anson were married in Akron, Summit county, Ohio, and there lived for some time,
subsequently moving to Indiana, where, in Pittsburg, Carroll county, the father died January
2, 1849.
The mother survived him some years, dying in this (Delaware) county, in May, 1861. These were
the parents of four children, of whom Mrs. Smith is the second in point of age.
An elder sister, Maria J., is now the wife of Thomas E. Smith, of Masonville, Delaware county,
and two brothers, George Anson and Henry Fox, died young, the former aged ten,
and the latter an infant. Mrs. Smith's marriage to Robert R. Craig took place December
30, 1856,
at Delhi, Delaware county, Iowa. Her husband of this marriage was a
native of Troy, N. Y., born in 1830, a son of William and Jennette Craig, who were natives of Paisley, Scotland, and who immigrated to America only a short time before the birth
of their son, Robert R. They settled in Indiana, dying in Ossian, Wells county, that state. Robert R. Craig died at Fort Wayne, Allen county, Ind., in 1861. To Robert R. and Cornelia
J. Craig were born three children-Frank Stewart, who died in infancy; Jennie
M., now wife of E. M. White, of Davenport, Iowa, and Lyle S., who died in 1881,
at the age of eighteen.
Frank K.
and Cornelia J. Smith have had born to them two children-Bertie, who died May
2, 1875, aged four years and seven months, and Ada
E., born June 23, 1873, still residing with her parents.
While Mr.
Smith has taken no active part in partisan politics, he is a man nevertheless
of fixed political principles, and has met his responsibilities as a citizen in
the fullest sense, and in a most acceptable manner. In former years he was a whig, and gave an earnest support
to the whig ticket; but with the obliteration of old
party lines, and the formation of the young and aggressive republican party, he
cast his political fortunes with that organization, and he has maintained a
steady allegiance to its teachings since.
In private
life he is mentioned for his kindness, his generosity, the simplicity of his
manners, and for his unaffected cordiality. His friends are numbered by his
acquaintances. As an evidence of the esteem in which they are held it may be
mentioned that Mr. and Mrs. Smith had charge of the poor infirmary of Delaware county for
seven years, and that they filled the position with honor to themselves and to
the satisfaction of all concerned.
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