JOSHUA L. SMITH
Joshua L. Smith is a native of Yates county. New York, and was born on the 18th day of June, 1825. While Joshua was quite a small boy his parents removed to Steuben county, New York, where he grew to manhood and received a district school education. In 1848 he went to Kentucky, first engaging in the sale of the Seth Thomas' clocks, but afterwards embarking in mercantile business in Louisville, under the firm name of Smith and Winchester. Their sales being mostly in the South, they abandoned the business at the breaking out of the war, and Mr. Smith entered the army as Sutler of the Twenty-first Kentucky Volunteer Infantry, under General Rosecrans. In 1852 he was married, in Kentucky, to Eliza Ann Richardson, a native of that State. By this marriage they have eight children--Allen R., who is in the stock business in Custer county, Dakota; Clara, the wife of George W. Felt, of Cass county; Minnie, the wife of Albert Gravely, of the firm of Smith and Gravely, of Atlantic; George W., who is railroading in Mexico; Edward W., station agent of Va., E. T. & G. R. R., in Alabama; Lutie, Logan and Fannie. In September, 1864, Mr. Smith removed to Cass county, Iowa, and located on section 14, in Turkey Grove, now Atlantic township, where he followed farming nineteen years. In the spring of 1883 he moved into Atlantic, and is now engaged in running a feed store. Mrs. Smith and her two eldest daughters are members of the Congregational church. Mr. S. has been justice of the peace for fourteen years and has also held other local offices. The county was mostly composed of wild prairies when he arrived, but he has lived to see the wonderful changes have been wrought. He made hay for two years on the land on which the city of Atlantic now stands. When he first came to the county he used to haul his surplus wheat to Des Moines, taking four days to make the round trip. He came to the county in company with two brothers--H. G. and Simeon, the trip taking fourteen days.
Contributed by Lisa Varnes-Rex from "History of Cass County, Iowa. Together With Sketches of its Towns, Villages and Townships, Educational, Civil, Military and Political History: Portraits of Prominent Persons, and Biographies of Old Settlers and Representative Citizens." Springfield, Ill.: Continental Historical Company, 1884, pp. 874-875.
