- SCOTT SMITH, one of the prosperous and influential farmers
of La Prairie township, Rock
- County, is a native of Wisconsin, and the son of one of the
earliest pioneers of Rock County. He was born in Milton township,
Rock County, Dec. 13, 1847, son of Isaac T. and Nancy A. (DeJEANS)
SMITH, natives of Chautauqua County, N.Y., and grandson of Farrington
SMITH, a native of Vermont, of English descent, and a farmer
by occupation, who in the early days migrated to Milton township,
Rock Co., Wis., where he died at the age of about seventy years.
He had a family of five children.
- Isaac T. SMITH, father of our subject, was born in 1817,
and came to Wisconsin in 1836,
- locating in the town of Milton, where he entered government
land and lived for a number of years. Removing to Marshalltown,
Iowa, he lived there for a year or two, and then engaged in the
manufacture of agricultural implements at Fort Dodge, that State.
He afterward lived in Colorado, and in the northern part of Wisconsin.
The last five years of his life he spent with his son Scott,
the subject of this sketch, in La Prairie township, Rock County,
and died there in January, 1898, aged eighty-one years. He was
twice married. His first wife, Nancy A. DeJEANS, was the daughter
of Stephen DeJEANS, a native of France, who when a boy of about
fifteen years of age came with his parents to America and located
at Albany, N.Y., where he grew to manhood. He served in the war
of 1812, and in 1837 came to Wisconsin, settling near Milwaukee,
where he engaged for a time in farming. He died near Brooklyn,
Dane Co., Wis., aged about seventy-five years, leaving a large
family. To Isaac T. and Nancy A. SMITH were born nine children,
six sons and three daughters, five of whom survive, namely: Flora,
wife of Charles JONES, of Iris, Colo.; Jay F., of Hotchkiss,
Colo.; Scott, our subject; Ida M., wife of Frank FARRELL, of
Fort Dodge, Iowa; and Ira Clair, of Nelson, Northwest Territory,
Canada.
- Scott SMITH, our subject, was reared on his father's farm
in Milton township. He attended the
- district schools during his boyhood, and at the early age
of thirteen years began working on the farm by the month. Arriving
at the years of manhood, he adopted farming as his vocation and
rented land for a number of years. In 1882 he bought seventy-four
acres in the town of Rock, living there until 1884, when he sold
the property and bought the present home farm, in Section 25,
La Prairie township, containing 161-1/2 acres, which he has brought
to a high state of cultivation, and where he has since resided.
Mr. SMITH also owns fifteen acres of land two miles south of
the home place.
- Mr. SMITH married, Feb. 17, 1870, Miss Adelaide M. SPEARS,
daughter of Edward and
- Mariette (BROWN) SPEARS, and to them have been born six children,
namely: Lucy E., died at the age of eight years. Eugene S. married
Jean LITTLE, and has two children, Harold and Louise; they reside
in La Prairie township. George W. died at the age of four years.
One died in infancy. Hattie E. married W. W. DAY, of the town
of La Prairie, where they reside on a farm. Walter E. lives at
home. Mr. and Mrs. Scott SMITH are prominent members of the M.
E. Church, of which he is a steward. In politics he is a Republican.
He has been through life, an industrious, progressive farmer,
of sterling character, and holds the respect and high esteem
of all who know him. His farm life was broken during the Civil
war by his enlistment in Company G, 44th Iowa V.I., in the one-hundred-days
service, at the expiration of which he returned to the farm.
-
- Taken from "Commemorative Biographical Record of
the Counties of Rock, Green, Grant, Iowa and Lafayette Wisconsin"
(c) 1901, pp. 402-403.
-
- Courtesy of Carol
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