Dave W. Smith

DAVE W. SMITH. The home of Dave W. Smith is located on a rolling half section described as the east half of section 3, township 21, range 16, Larned Township, Pawnee County. He came to this place and bought the land in 1901, paying $4,200 for the half section. His home is one of notable improvements and has every indication of thrift and progressive management. There is a beautiful modern two-story house of ten rooms, and his barn is 32 by 50 feet with sixteen-foot posts. The capacity of the mow is sixty tons and he has a 3,000 bushel granary, garage, cow sheds and other farm buildings.

Mr. Smith has been a resident of Kansas since 1878, when he came with his parents. The family located in Rush County, twelve miles north of Larned. In that community Dave W. Smith spent his boyhood and acquired his education from the common schools. He lived there until his marriage, and then spent a year in Barton County before coming to his present place. The land when he acquired it had few improvements, mainly a six room house and some sheds for stock. This served as his home until 1907, when he built his present modern residence. Mr. Smith also owns the north half of the southwest quarter of section 3 in the same township and range, for which he paid $4,800. He also has stock in the Farmers Elevator and in the State Bank of Pawnee Rock. His success as a farmer has been largely on the basis of wheat growing. He almost set a record for production in 1916 when from forty acres which had been permitted a summer fallow he raised an average of forty-five bushels an acre. His largest aggregate crop came in that very profitable season and year, 1916, when he harvested 6000 bushels. In his experience he has sold wheat as low as 50 cents a bushel and he is one of the few Kansas farmers who have been paid $3.00 a bushel for wheat, getting that price during the spring of 1917.

Mr. Smith's grandfather was David Smith, an early settler in Tennessee and a farmer, who died in Knox County of that state before the Civil war. His children were: Ann, wife of Edmund Haun, who came to Rush County, Kansas, in 1879, and afterwards moved across the line into Pawnee County; Jane, who spent her life in Tennessee; Alexander and Anthony, of Tennessee; and David, of Seattle, Washington.

John Smith, father of Dave W., was born in Knox County, Tennessee, and prior to the war was a boot and shoe manufacturer in Concord, Tennessee. He was of Northern sympathies, but was unable to participate in the war on account of physical disability. After the war he took up farming and spent his time agriculturally in Pawnee County, where he died in 1907, at the age of sixty-seven. He married Eliza Christian, daughter of W. L. Christian, who was a Tennessee farmer and a Confederate soldier from that state. W. L. Christian had the following children: Charles and William, both of Tennessee; Eliza Smith; Sally, wife of Mat Galbreath, who came to Kansas in 1877, but who died in Tacoma, Washington; and Joseph, of Larned, Kansas. The children of John and Eliza Smith were: Dave W.; Ora, wife of William Hempy, of Eugene, Oregon; Arthur, of Grand Junction, Colorado; Sally, wife of Robert Romig of Montrose, Colorado; Edmund, of Larned Township; and Bertha, wife of Charles Hammon, of Montrose, Colorado.

Dave W. Smith married Mary Vosburg. Her father, Charles Vosburg, homesteaded land north of Pawnee Rock in the early days, and died in Barton County, Kansas, in 1904, at the age of fifty-eight. Charles Vosburg was born in Wyoming County, Pennsylvania. His two brothers and sisters were Truman, who for thirty years served as postmaster of Skinners Eddy, Pennsylvania; Carver, of Tuncamack, Pennsylvania; and Emma, unmarried and living at Skinners Eddy, Pennsylvania. Charles Vosburg married Susan Crisman, daughter of Joseph Crisman, a harness maker at Newark, New Jersey. Susan Crisman's brothers and sisters were, Edward of Auburn Four Corners, Pennsylvania; Mary, wife of John Brugler of Meshoppen, Pennsylvania; Elizabeth, wife of Albert Comrade, of Scranton, Pennsylvania; Libby, wife of Kern Brugler, of Scranton; and Rose, wife of John Lawrence, of Meshoppen, Pennsylvania. Charles and Susan Vosburg had the following children: Jessie, wife of Chet Williamson, of Lewis, Kansas; John, a grain buyer of Lewis; and Mrs. Mary Smith.

Dave W. and Mrs. Smith have three children: Media, Wesley and Eloise. Politically Mr. Smith has always been a republican. For four years he served as township treasurer and his wife was a member of the school board ten years. Both are active in the Methodist Episcopal Church at Larned and Mr. Smith has membership in the Modern Woodmen of America and the Grange.

Pages 2103-2104.