Whiteside County IL Archives Biographies.....Smith, Leander 
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Author: Portrait/Bio Album, Whiteside County IL 1885

Leander Smith, banker at Morrison, is one of the most prominent business men 
in Northern Illinois. He is senior member of the banking firm of Smith & 
Mackay, and has been president of the First National Bank at Morrison since 
its organization in 1865. The ancestors of Mr. Smith belonged to the old 
Puritan stock that settled in Massachusetts, and his immediate progenitors 
located at and near Ipswich, in that State. From there, Nathan Smith, his 
father, traced direct lineal descent. The grandparents of Mr. Smith settled in 
Mount Vernon, N. H., where Nathan was born in 1777. Nancy Lamson, who became 
his wife, was born in Mount Vernon, in 1782, and they became the parents of 
two sons—Nathan, Jr., and Leander. The former died in Athol, Mass., in 
January, 1879, and left a wife and three children. Nathan Smith, senior, was 
by vocation a manufacturer of woolen cloth, and, after marriage went to 
Templeton, Mass. In 1838 he removed to Royalston, in the same State, and died 
there in 1849. His wife died at the same place, in 1854. Mr. Smith was born 
Feb. 10, 1819, in Templeton, Mass. In addition to the business of a 
manufacturer his father owned and conducted a farm, where his family lived and 
where his sons were brought up. Mr. Smith lived on the farm until he was 16 
years of age, when he was sent to an academy at New Ipswich, N. H., where he 
obtained a substantial elementary education. At the age of 17 years he began 
teaching and spent six successive winters in the pursuit of that vocation. 
Meanwhile he was engaged in studious preparation for a professional life, and, 
as opportunity offered, he began to read medicine. He matriculated in the 
Medical Department of Dartmouth College, in Hanover, N. H., from which he was 
graduated with the degree of M. D. in 1842, when he was 23 years of age. He 
entered upon his initiatory career as a physician and surgeon at Richmond, N. 
H., where he practiced with success for about three years. He was not content 
with the scope and acquisitions of his life as a professional man, and in 
order to extend his business relations he left Richmond and went to Tioga Co., 
Pa., when the rich lumber resources of that section was being opened and which 
afforded a promising field for the exercise of the abilities and ambitions of 
Mr. Smith. His professional skill was as valuable a resource as the energies 
and financial ability he brought to bear upon the situation, and he conducted 
his business as a physician with all the interest and ardor demanded by the 
exigencies of the location. He entered heavily into the manufacture and sale 
of lumber and combined therewith a mercantile enterprise of considerable 
proportions. His location was at Elkland, and he was engaged in the pursuit of 
his several business interests in Tioga County from 1845 to 1853. Meanwhile, 
the glowing and exciting accounts of the golden harvest on the Pacific coast, 
ripe for the reapers, aroused all sections of the New World and Mr. Smith 
joined the "Argonauts," as the earliest immigrants to California were 
designated. He went in March, 1849, to the sunset slope of the Western 
Continent, to avail himself of the mining resources. At that time the city of 
Sacramento was a hamlet of tents, and a few unpretentious houses occupied the 
site of the present magnificent city of the Golden Gate. The local government 
was in a state of chaos from existing circumstances; the rapid influx of 
population of a most miscellaneous character, setting aside all regulations of 
law and order; and, in the absence of authority, every man was a power unto 
himself and exercised his assumed prerogatives according to his own 
interpretations of the rights and privileges to himself accruing, by virtue of 
his understanding, his interests, or his prejudices, or whatever his stand­
point might be. Mr. Smith engaged in prospecting on the North Fork of the 
American River, and he remained in California about a year. He was an 
efficient auxiliary in the administration of measures to secure the 
tranquillity and protection of the people the government being in a formative 
condition and largely dependent on the efficiency of the authorities 
constituted irregularly in the absence of systematized municipal regulations. 
He returned to Pennsylvania in 1850, after a year of successful operation in 
the Golden State, and resumed the duties of his former business connections. 
In 1853 he went to Vinton, Benton Co., Iowa, under the same impetus which had 
led him to Pennsylvania. He established his practice there and became speedily 
and extensively identified with the general interests of the place. He 
acquired the proprietorship of large tracts of Government land, and he platted 
an addition to the village of Vinton, which is still designated by his name. 
After operating at that point a year, he went to Lyons, in Iowa, and 
prosecuted his professional business and other interests two years. In 1856 he 
came to Fulton, Whiteside Co., Ill., where he devoted his attention to the 
prosecution of financial projects and enterprises, and also engaged 
extensively in the manufacture and sale of lumber. He prosecuted his interests 
in that direction at Fulton ten years, and during that time he secured large 
tracts of Government land in Wisconsin and Minnesota, covered with pine 
timber, the latter being removed and the land afterwards sold to settlers for 
farms. Mr. Smith inaugurated the private banking enterprise of Smith, Root & 
Co., at Fulton, in 1856, in which he retained a controlling interest until 
1864, in which year the financial enterprise under the style of L. Smith & Co. 
was established at Morrison. In 1865 the latter was converted into the First 
National Bank, with Mr. Smith as President and A. J. Jackson, Cashier. In 
January, 1885, the bank commenced business under its first extension of 
franchise, its original charter having expired at the end of 20 years. In the 
fall of 1862, while a resident of Fulton, Mr. Smith was elected to represent 
his district in the Legislature of Illinois, and in the fall of 1864, he was 
re-elected to the same position. He served on Committees on Banks, 
Corporations and State Institutions, and on several others of minor 
importance. He performed his duties in the interests of his constituency in an 
able and characteristic manner. He introduced several important bills, among 
which was that providing for the building of the Rockford, Rock Island & St. 
Louis Railroad, now the property of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy 
corporation. In 1868, Mr. Smith visited California in the pursuit of health 
and relaxation from business cares, to find a wealthy and prosperous 
commonwealth, fair cities thronged with the most cosmopolitan population to be 
found on the earth, and a general condition which seemed the result of the 
operations of some superhuman instrumentality. In 1876 Mr. Smith became a 
resident of Morrison, and in 1878 he founded the private banking house of 
Smith & Mackay, of which he is the senior member, and which has been from the 
outset engaged in the transaction of extensive and satisfactory financial 
operations. He has continued his traffic in real estate and has devoted much 
attention to the general improvement of land in Whiteside County, where he is 
the proprietor of 2,000 acres of land under excellent cultivation. He is also 
the owner of several thousand acres of land in Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin and 
Minnesota. Since becoming a citizen of Whiteside County, he has been 
continuously identified with the local interests of Fulton and Morrison. He 
officiated several years as member of the Council in the former place, and 
also served that municipality some years as City Treasurer. On the 
organization of the College of Northern Illinois, at Fulton, he was 
constituted a member of the Board of Trustees, and, with the exception of an 
interim of one year, he has acted as its Treasurer continuously. He has had 
entire charge of its endowment fund. Mr. Smith has been one of the Board of 
Aldermen at Morrison six years. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity at 
Fulton. Whatever political faith Mr. Smith possessed on arriving at the era of 
his legal freedom he had imbibed from association chiefly, his ancestors 
having been Democrats of the Jacksonian school, and he acted in accordance 
with his transmitted principles until 1848. The crowning and significant 
events that characterized the presidential campaign of that year had a weighty 
influence with Mr. Smith, and he had, as by intuition, a comprehensive 
understanding of all that was implied by the term "Free Soil," and understood 
the responsibilities which coming exigencies laid upon his manhood. He voted 
for Martin Van Buren as the exponent of his new faith in its embryo state. On 
the organization of the Republican party he enlisted earnestly in its ranks, 
and has ever since accorded to its issues his zealous support. He is equally 
sincere in religious sentiment, and although he favors the tenets of the 
Baptist creed, he is liberal and tolerant of all denominational bodies who 
base their organization upon the principles of Christianity. He gives to all 
generously without distinction of sect, and since the outset of his career of 
prosperity he has been known as the helpful assistant of all evangelical 
projects. He was one of the largest contributors to the new church edifice 
built by the Presbyterian society at Morrison, in 1884. It is conceded that 
Mr. Smith is at the head of the long catalogue of financiers in Whiteside 
County, which presents an array of names of uncommon ability and success. Men 
are born with the Midas touch, and every community comprises one or more in 
its category of types of business pre-eminence. Mr. Smith was united in 
marriage Aug. 18, 1843, in Richmond, N. H., to Elizabeth Parkhurst. She was 
born in Richmond and was the daughter of Dr. John Parkhurst, of that place. 
She died Jan. 31, 1851, at Elkland, Pa. Mr. Smith entered into a second 
matrimonial alliance May 2, 1855, with Dolly Ann Allen. She was born in 
Cortland Co., N. Y. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have been the parents of six children. 
Elizabeth, second child, is deceased. Alice is the oldest. Frank L. is cashier 
in the banking house of Smith & Mackay. Louis W. is his successor in the order 
of birth. Edward A. is a book­keeper in the bank. Harry W. is the youngest 
child. The portrait of Mr. Smith is presented on another page. It will be 
welcomed by his own generation through personal motives of appreciation, and 
those of the future will cherish it as the likeness of one who brought his 
abilities and resources to bear upon the permanent foundation of Whiteside 
County.

Additional Comments:
Portrait and Biographical Album of Whiteside County, Illinois, Containing Full-
page Portraits and Biographical Sketches of Prominent and Representative 
Citizens of the County. Chicago: Chapman Brothers, 1885.

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