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HENRY B. SMITH.
HENRY B. SMITH, of Moran, leading implement dealer and worthy citizen, came to Kansas in 1878 and stopped first in Atchison. Remaining there a short time he went into Norton county, Kansas, took up a claim and tried farming in the sbort grass country eighteen months. Leaving the west he went to Parsons, Kansas, and spent one year there. Allen county was his next objective point and to this locality he came in 1881. He was in the county about three months before he entered the neighborhood of Moran. His first entrance into the town was in company with L. H. Gorrell with whom he soon after engaged in the implement business. The firm was Gorrell & Smith and it continued in business till 1887 when Mr. Smith purchased the interest of his partner and has since conducted the firm's affairs.
Our subject was born in Clayton county, Iowa, September 8, 1855. His father's name was John Smith and the latter went into that state from Pennsylvania in 1850. In 1857 he returned to his original home in Latiobe, Pennsylvania, and there reared his family. He was a carriage maker and was born in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania, in 1824. He was a son of Jacob Smith, a wagon maker.
John Smith married Adeline Cook who died in Pennsylvania in 1893. Their five children are: Henry B.; George C., of Jamestown, North Dakota; Emeline, wife of Peter Albaugh, of Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; Blanche, wife of Clark Thomas, of Moran, and Grant Smith, of Chicago, Illinois. The father of the family resides in Jamestown, North Dakota.
H. B. Smith left Pennsylvania before he came of age and returned to the state of his birth. He had learned his father's trade and this he made his means of support for some years. He worked in Clayton and in McGregor, Iowa, before his return to the Keystone state. He remained a year in Latiobe, Pennsylvania, and then made his final trip west. He spent a few months at his trade in Atchison, Kansas, and was induced to desert it for a time, by visions of a free home in the west.
May 2, 1883, Mr. Smith was married in Moran, Kansas, to Miss Orpha E. DeHart, a daughter of Elisha DeHart, who came to Kansas from Morgan county, Indiana, and who is a well known, industrious and respected citizen of Moran. Mr. and Mrs. Smith's children are: Leroy, Pearl B. and Ralph.
As a citizen Mr. Smith is modest and unassuming, yet alive to his own interests and to those of his town. He is a member of the township board and has spent nine years on the school board.
Page 212, transcribed by Carolyn Ward from History of Allen and Woodson Counties, Kansas: embellished with portraits of well known people of these counties, with biographies of our representative citizens, cuts of public buildings and a map of each county / Edited and Compiled by L. Wallace Duncan and Chas. F. Scott. Iola Registers, Printers and Binders, Iola, Kan.: 1901; 894 p., [36] leaves of plates: ill., ports.; includes index.
