Yolo-Sutter County CA Archives Biographies.....Smith, John H. 1854 - 
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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com December 13, 2005, 9:41 pm

Author: Tom Gregory

JOHN H. SMITH

    The results of frugal saving of wages earned in the employ of others
eventually enabled Mr. Smith to invest in property for himself and during 1896
he became the owner of twenty acres in Willow Oak park, near Woodland, since
which purchase he has devoted his entire attention to the cultivation and
improvement of the ranch. The tract has been seeded down to alfalfa, of which he
has frequently cut six crops per annum, never cutting less than five crops of
the hay. It has been his experience that an alfalfa ranch affords an exceptional
opportunity for success in the dairy industry and he still has his dairy, which,
although small, is so well conducted as to yield gratifying results. A family
orchard adds to the value of the property and furnishes an abundance of fruit
for table use.

    At the period of national development when the undeveloped soil of Missouri
was attracting homesteaders from Kentucky, among other pioneers Matthew H. and
Rebecca (Eppson) Smith, natives of Kentucky, became identified with the newer
regions west of the Mississippi river. Land was pre-empted in Audrain county, a
home was established, a farm improved; and there in 1854 occurred the birth of
John H. Smith, one of a family numbering eight children. The location was
favorable from the standpoint of soil fertility, but when the threatened
outbreak of the Rebellion and its later development into a sanguinary struggle
made of Missouri one vast battlefield the Smith family, in 1862, crossed the
plains with wagons, oxen and a drove of cattle. They were members of an
expedition comprising ninety-five wagons and including a large number of men,
women and children.

   A perilous journey came to an uneventful termination and the Smith family
settled at Smith's Ferry in Sutter county near the Sacramento river, where the
father bought one hundred and sixty acres of unimproved land. The soil and
climate proved to be adapted to barley and wheat and also to corn and these he
made his principal crops. By dint of energy and perseverance he paid for his
ranch, made many improvements and transformed the property from a frontier claim
into a productive estate. With advancing years he lightened his labors, but he
never left the old homestead and there his death occurred in 1881. There also
occurred the demise of his wife. They were the parents of eight children, John
H., Wesley, William, Wilburn, Mary, Rebecca, James and Robert, of whom seven are
living.

   The most memorable event in the boyhood years of John H. Smith was the trip
across the plains. He has never forgotten its perils and accidents, its monotony
and its final safe ending. The sorrow at the departure from the home of infancy
was soon lost in the pleasures incident to existence in the west. The schools of
the neighborhood afforded him an education in the three R's, and habits of
reading and close observation have widened his realm of knowledge. At the age of
twenty-one he left the home ranch to earn his own livelihood. With three
brothers he settled in Modoc county and took up nine hundred and sixty acres of
wild land near Eagleville, where he engaged in raising stock. Circumstances over
which he had no control prevented the venture from becoming a financial success,
and at the expiration of eight years he gave up the business there and
relinquished all hope of material prosperity through its continuance. Coming to
Yolo county, he worked for wages on the Adams ranch and also was employed on the
Senator Fair ranch. It was not until 1896 that he felt prepared for landed
investments of his own, and he then bought his present farm near Woodland. So
closely has his attention been given to the earning of a livelihood that he has
had little leisure for outside affairs and has taken no part whatever in
politics, nor has he been identified with any fraternal organization except the
Maccabees. His greatest source of pleasure has been in his home and in the
companionship of his wife and daughter, Mae. Mrs. Smith, prior to their marriage
in 1887, was Miss Ruth Plantz and was born in Illinois, but in 1884 came to
California with her father, Timothy Plantz, and settled in Yolo county, which
has remained the home of the Plantz family from that time to the present.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from

HISTORY OF YOLO COUNTY CALIFORNIA
WITH
Biographical Sketches
OF
The Leading Men and Women of the County Who Have Been Identified With Its Growth
and Development From the Early Days to the Present

HISTORY BY
TOM GREGORY
AND OTHER WELL KNOWN WRITERS
ILLUSTRATED COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME

HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA [1913]




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