William Smith

            WILLIAM SMITH was born in Kaiserslautern, Germany, May 4, 1837, one of eight children born to Henry and Catharine (Leppla) Smith, respectively born in Germany January 1, 1801, and September, 1815. About 1839 or 1840, Henry Smith emigrated to the United states, and settled in Tuscarawas County, Ohio, where he worked for James Patterson seven years, for $100 per year. After two years’ residence here, he sent to Germany for his wife and family.

    Mr. Smiths subsequently bought eighty acres of unimproved land in Tuscarawas County, and cleared a farm which, in 1852, he sold for $1,200. He then mobbed to the Reservoir Farm near Massillon, owned by Martial D. Wellman, for whom he worked two years, receiving for the services of himself and our subject, his son, $300 per year. The fall of 1854, he moved to Smith Township, this county, and bought eighty acres of wild land of Louis Bose, for whom he cleared adjoining lands in part payment. Here he has ever since resided, and is hale and hearty in his eighty-second year

    William Smith received about eight months’ schooling, but has now a fair education, being self taught. He worked on his father’s farm till twenty-one, and then for two and a half years worked out by the month.

    June 4, 1861, he married Mary E. Van Huten, born in Smith Township, September 17, 1839, daughter of Jacob and Catharine (Ashley) Van Huten, natives of Ashland County, Ohio. To this union there were no children. The lady died at her home on Coesse June 4, 1871, and is buried near her parents in the cemetery close by that town. October 14, 1872, Mr. Smith married Catharine Wolfangle, born in Richland County, Ohio, in November, 1851, daughter of Frederick and Catharine H. Wolfangle, from Germany. By this union our subject has two living children, Nettie and Martha.

    After his first marriage, he rented a farm for two years; in 1863, he moved to Coesse, and worked eighteen months in a sawmill’ then got out wood for the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad, under contract for three years; then engaged in shipping hoop-poles to Chicago on his own account for about three years; in 1872, engaged in the lumber business under the firm name of Smith & Colten; in the spring of 1876, engaged in the same trade under the firm name of Smith & Mossman. This firm now receive the lumber from ten mills, and shipped during the last year 3,000 feet. Mr. Smith is a member of the Methodist Episcopal, and Mrs. Smith of the German Lutheran Church. In politics, he is a Republican.

Source: Counties of Whitley and Noble, Indiana. Historical and Biographical. Weston A. Goodspeed, Historical Editor. Charles Blanchard, Biographical Editor. F.A. Battey & Co., Publishers, 1882, page 370-371.