Byron Smith

Byron Smith, son of Asher and Phoebe (Stark) Smith, and grandson of Jonathan, born April 18, 1764, and Anna Smith, born January 7, 1770, was born in Stark county, July 28, 1851. His father was born in Luzerne county, Penn., October 28, 1807, and his mother, daughter of John Stark, a native of Connecticut, born also in Luzerne county. July 20, 1811. They were married in 1832. They came to this county in 1885, and Mr. Smith walked to Galena to enter his first forty acres in Osceola. He was a tanner by trade, and in connection with his farm carried on a tannery here. Of his five children, there are living Oliver, of Sedgwick county, Kan.; Eliza, wife of Dr. Miner, of Decatur county, Kan., and Byron. Up to I860, Asher Smith was a Democrat, but then voted for Lincoln, and so continued Republican down to his death, May 3, 1869. For seven terms he was assessor, and served as collector and school director for several terms. During the war he was a member of the Union League, and in all respects a model citizen. His wife, a true daughter of Molly Stark, died June 7, 1881, and, as related in the history of Franklin cemetery, in Osceola, near Penn township, was laid to rest beside her husband. She was a descendant of Gen. Stark, a teacher in Luzerne county, a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, and an excellent woman. Byron Smith received his early education here, and attended the schools of Ann Arbor, Mich., for seven months. Like his father, he is a Republican, and not a member of any religious society, though supporting the Methodist Episcopal church. He purchased his father's homestead of 176 acres, of which he sold twenty-two acres, and added by purchase eighty, making a fine farm of 237 acres on section 31. Mr. Smith is still a young man, one of excellent parts, and ranks among the first citizens of the township. (Vide history of H. Avery.)