Harrison County Iowa Genealogy

HISTORY OF HARRISON COUNTY, IOWA, 1891
BIOGRAPHIES
Page 759
HARRISON C. SMITH

Harrison C. SMITH, a farmer living on section 35, of Jackson Township, came to Harrison County in the spring of 1857, and located on the farm he now occupies which he purchased at $1.25 per acre, with land warrants, which he bought at a reduction of twenty per cent making his land cost him $1 per acre.

He visited Ohio in the fall of 1860, where he spent the winter with his parents they having removed to Ohio in the fall of 1857. In the spring of 1861 he went to Colorado where he was engaged in agriculture until the spring of 1863, when he, in company with a train of merchantmen, set out for Bannock via Ft. Halleck, Ft. Bridger, Bear and Snake River Valleys, arriving at Bannock after a journey of fifty-two days. The train crossed the Snake River in wagonbeds; a perilous undertaking considering the river was a raging torrent. But it was successfully accomplished in six days' time despite the perils of water and of Indians and the arrival at Bannock occurred with out loss of life or limb. Here he found the mines overworked, so struck out for ALDER Gulch, a new discovery on the east side of the range. By the way, this gulch proved to be extensive and rich, containing some thirteen miles of placer mines, yielding millions of dollars. He owned and worked ground there for something over three years, sold out and struck out for the States in the fall of 1866.

He then came back to Iowa, and broke out about thirty acres of his land, built a house, barn, and made other improvements, and finally provided his place with wells and a windmill, set out an orchard of one hundred apple trees and has since added to his farm until he now has three hundred and twenty acres, eighty acres of which is under the plow, the balance is in meadow and pasture land.

A man by the name of HERD organized a MACKINAW fleet of seventeen or eighteen boats. There were some two hundred and fifty men in the fleet, and embarked at the mouth of the Yellowstone Canon just across the range dividing the Jefferson River from the Yellowstone, some fifteen or twenty miles from the city of Bozeman. This was another perilous trip, at this time the Indians were on the warpath.

The incidents of interest during this ride of fifteen hundred miles would fill a small volume. They disembarked at Yankton, S.D., though most of the fleet went on stopping off at Omaha and Kansas City, some as far as St. Louis, took the stage at Yankton for Des Moines, via Council Bluffs, thence by rail to Cleveland, Ohio, arriving at Bedford in October. He remained on a visit with relatives and friends until the next fall (1867), and then made a trip down to Vermont after an absence of ten years and spent three months among old acquaintances and then returned to Ohio, where he spent the winter with his parent, making preparations for a final settlement in Iowa.

Of our subject's earlier life it may be said he was born in Addison County, Vt. September 24, 1835. He is a son of Loudon and Abigail SMITH, natives of the Green Mountain State, who reared a family of five children�Harrison C., Laurine E., George E., John T., deceased, and Mary a. Four of these children are living�two in Ohio, one in Kansas and our subject. He remained in Vermont with his parents until he became of age, and then came to Harrison County, Iowa.

He was united in marriage, in December, 1868 to Sarah E. HAMMOND, natives of Vermont, who reared a family of nine children, our subject's wife being the youngest. Her father's family was as follows: Sydney M., George B., Catherine C., deceased; Hezekiah W., deceased; Vernul D., Horace J., deceased; Charles W., Edwin H., and Sarah E.

Mr. and Mrs. SMITH are the parents of six children, born and named as follows: Orton L., December 22, 1869; Carrie B., October 10, 1871; Edna D., November 20 1874; John H., May 8, 1877; Edith L., March 19, 1879; George B., May 24, 1884.

Our subject and wife are acceptable members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and stands high in the community in which they live. Politically Mr. SMITH votes with the Republican Party, and has held the offices of Justice of the Peace, and Township Trustee of Jackson Township.

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