- JAY F. SMITH. Jay F. SMITH, who is one of the prosperous
and progressive ranch and cattle
- men of Delta county, Colorado, where he has also given some
attention to fruit culture, is a native of Rock county, Wisconsin,
where he was boni on December 29, 1845, and the son of Isaac
T. and Nancy A. (DEJANES) SMITH, New Yorkers by nativity. The
father was a farmer and dealt considerably in agricultural machinery.
The family moved to Wisconsin in 1836, and there the mother died
in 1859. Three years afterward the father moved to Iowa and in
1874 to Colorado. He remained in this state until 1898, having
his home near Fort Collins a part of the time and a part at Lake
City, and being engaged most of the period in mining and prospecting.
In 1898 he went back to his old Wisconsin home, where he died
in 1901. There were nine children in the family and five of them
are living, two in this state. Jay F. SMITH remained at home
until he reached the age of nineteen, receiving in the neighborhood
schools a common-school education. In 1864 he began the battle
of life for himself as a laborer, working in his native state
until the fall of 1865, and in Iowa from that time until the
spring of 1866. At the period last named he came to Colorado,
making the journey overland with Captain Tyler to Boulder. He
arrived at his destination with nothing in money, but soon secured
a position as a hand on a ranch, and from then until 1881 he
worked for wages. In that year he took up his residence in Delta
county, pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres of land for a
home, which he improved and brought into vigorous cultivation
in hay, grain and vegetables as rapidly as possible. He also
set out forty apple trees, which is all he ever did in the way
of fruit culture. He has given the most of his attention to raising
stock and hay, and has prospered at the enterprise. When he took
up his ranch he had btt little more capital than when he arrived
in Colorado. He now owns sixty acres of good land in a high state
of cultivation and well improved with good buildings, the place
being worth over ten thousand dollars. In 1892 he was married
to Miss Nettie MORROW, who was born in Franklin county, Missouri,
and is the daughter of John W. and Delilah (FUNK) MORROW, the
former a native of Tennessee and the latter of Franklin county,
Missouri. The father was a farmer. He went to California in one
of the argonautic expeditions of 1849, but never lived in Colorado.
His wife died on May 13, 1887, in Franklin county, Missouri,
and he at the same place on May 18, 1894. Mr. and Mrs. SMITH
have had two children. One died in infancy, and the other, their
daughter Fairy D., is living, aged eleven. Mr. SMITH supports
the Republican party in politics. During the Civil War he served
one hundred days in the Union army as a member of Company G,
Forty-fourth Iowa Infantry.
-
- [Taken from "Progressive Men of Western Colorado"
(c)1905 A. W. Bowen, Chicago; pp. 289-290]
|