SMITH, Hervey D., b 1845 1905 Bio, Mesa County, Colorado http://files.usgwarchives.net/co/mesa/bios/smithhd.txt --------------------------------------- Donated September 13, 2001 Transcribed by Judy Crook from the book: Progressive Men of Western Colorado Published 1905, A.W. Bowen & Co., Chicago, Ill. --------------------------------------- Hervey D. Smith Hervey D. Smith, of near Grand Junction, is one of the successful and progressive fruit-growers of Mesa county, and came to the work in which he is now engaged with due preparation made in varied and instructive experience in many places and under a great variety of circumstances, all of which tended to develop his native capacity and force of character. He was born at Adrian, Michigan, on March 8, 1845, and is the son of Newton and Elvira (Ives) Smith, natives of Chautauqua county, New York, born near the city of Jamestown, where they were reared, educated and married. Soon after their marriage they moved to Adrian, Michigan, which was at the time a small hamlet. The father was a carpenter and joiner, and found his skill as a mechanic immediately in great demand, as the village was ready for improvement and he was called on to build many of its first houses of any importance. He died young in 1847, leaving his widow and two children, a daughter and Hervey D., who was at that time about two years old. The mother returned with her children to her native state, and there sometime afterward she was married to John Pitcher. In 1853 they came west to Bremer county, Iowa, where they were early pioneers. She died in Black Hawk county, Iowa, in 1877, at the home of Mr. Smith. Of her second marriage there were three children who grew to maturity, but all are now deceased. Hervey D. Smith, the younger of the two children of the first marriage, remained with his mother in New York until he was six years old, then spent three years with an uncle, a Methodist minister, at Ashtabula, Ohio. At the end of that time he joined his mother and step-father in Iowa, and he remained with them attending school until the beginning of the Civil war. In August, 1861, he enlisted in defense of the Union in Company B, Thirty-eighth Iowa Infantry, and was assigned to the Department of the Gulf. After three years' service he was mustered out as a member of Company I, Thirty-fourth Iowa, the two regiments having been consolidated on account of the depletion of their ranks. He was in the engagements at Vicksburg, Port Hudson, Fort Morgan, Spanish Fort and Fort Blakeslee, but escaped without disaster of any kind. After the close of the war he settled at Janeville, Bremer county, Iowa, and there he learned the miller's trade. On completing his apprenticeship he moved to Manchester where he worked at his trade, and did the same at Osage, LaPorte City and Waterloo in the same state. At the last he was foreman of a large mill for nine years. In 1881 he moved to Sioux Rapids, Iowa, and engaged in milling on his own account. Here he bought a mill and operated it for a period of about twenty years. The mill was of the old style, with three run of stone and a capacity of fifty barrels a day. He improved it soon after he bought it, putting in the latest roller process and increasing its capacity to one hundred and twenty-five barrels. In 1893-4 he improved it, at a cost of fifteen thousand dollars, and also put in an electric light plant for the city. The hard times in 1896 were particularly damaging to him, and in 1898 the property was destroyed by fire, leaving him almost penniless. In the autumn of 1899 he came to Colorado and, locating in Grand valley, bought forty acres of wild land four miles east of Grand Junction, on which he built a house and made other improvements, and planted fifteen acres of fruit trees. He then sold the property at a good profit in the spring of 1903. After that he bought the ten acres on which he now lives, three miles east of Grand Junction. This tract is all in fruit trees in good bearing order which yield an abundant annual harvest and a handsome revenue. Mr. Smith was married on May 16, 1869, to Miss Luranda Rinker, who was born in Ogle county, Illinois, and is the daughter of Commodore Perry and Louisa (Turck) Rinker, the former a native of Louisville, Kentucky, and the latter of Cayuga county, New York. Mr. Rinker's father died when he was three years old, and he was taken by his mother and step-father to Indiana in boyhood, and in 1836 to Ogle county, Illinois, where the family were among the earliest settlers. The parents kept a half-way house between Dixon and Rockford on the east side of Rock river, about two miles and a half from what is now Oregon. Here Mr. Rinker grew to manhood and received the greater part of his school education. In 1848, when he was twenty-two, he left home and moved to Jasper county, Iowa, where he took up one hundred and sixty acres of land seven miles from Newton, being a pioneer in the neighborhood. What is now Newton was then almost nothing but a log tavern in the wild country. Here he followed his chosen occupation of farming, varying its strenuous labor with the pleasures of hunting. On one occasion, while hunting on Skunk river, he pulled up a cottonwood sprout for a whip, and when he got home stuck it in the ground in front of his house. It grew and flourished, and when he visited the place fifty years later he measured its circumference, requiring a string over fourteen feet long for the purpose. Having improved his farm, he sold it in 1856 and moved to Janesville, Black Hawk county, where he opened the first butcher shop in the town. He afterward kept a hotel there for a number of years, then traded the hotel property for a farm near the town which he farmed for a time. He then retired from active pursuits and located at Sioux Rapids. Mrs. Rinker died on March 22, 1895, and in 1897 Mr. Rinker came to Mesa county, this state, and made his home for a time with his grandson, Milton Smith. He now lives with Milton's father, the subject of this sketch. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have four children, one of whom is an adopted daughter. Their own offspring are Milton P., of Mesa county; Edwin E., a physician at Sioux Rapids, Iowa; and Aura L., a teacher in the Fruitvale school. Emma, the adopted daughter, now twelve years old, is a daughter of Mr. Smith's half-sister. In political faith Mr. Smith is a stanch Republican. While living at Sioux Rapids he served as a member of the city council twelve years. He also served as a member of the school board. In fraternal life he belongs to the Masonic order in lodge, chapter and commandery, and he is active in the work of the several bodies. =================================================== Contributed for use by the USGenWeb Archive Project (http://www.usgenweb.org) and by the COGenWeb Archive Project USGENWEB NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access.