BIOGRAPHY: Benjamin Franklin SMITH, Cambria County, PA 

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From Wiley, Samuel T., ed. Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Cambria 
County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia: Union Publishing Co., 1896, p. 411-2
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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SMITH, an experienced mine foreman and a member of the 
contracting firm of Smith & Shifford, now mining for the Chest Creek Coal 
company, is a son of Daniel and Sarah Ann Smith, and was born in Plain township, 
Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, March 31, 1853.
    The Smith family is of a sturdy, honest and substantial race of people, 
known as Pennsylvania German, whose well-kept and productive farms are the pride 
of several counties in eastern Pennsylvania. Daniel Smith was a native of near 
Stroudsburg, this State, and settled in Plain township, Luzerne county, where he 
died June 1, 1876, when in the seventy-sixth year of his age. He was a hard-
working man, a republican politically, and, for many years before his death, had 
been a member of the Presbyterian church. He married the mother of our subject, 
and their children were: David, deceased; Susan, married Patrick Rodgers, and 
now dead, Frederick, deceased; Adam, still residing in his native township; 
William, superintendent of the Gallitzin Coal and Coke company's plant at 
Gallitzin; Benjamin Franklin; Sarah, deceased; Melvina, wife of Lawrence 
Rodgers, of Luzerne county; Charles, superintendent of the Walling Coal 
company's mines at Pattison, this State; Ellen, married Showman Towns, and is 
dead; Silas, deceased; and Katie, who married George E. Aikens, and is now dead.
    Benjamin Franklin Smith received his education in the common schools, and 
supplemented it by reading and self-study. Leaving school, he followed mining 
until he was eighteen years of age, when he was placed in charge of a part of 
the force employed in sinking a shaft. After this he held various mine positions 
until 1882, when he was made mine foreman at the Osceola coal mines of 
Clearfield county, a position which he held for twelve years. At the end of that 
long period of mine-work direction, in 1894, he came to Hastings, and became 
mine foreman of the Chest Creek Coal and Coke company's mine there. In a short 
time Mr. Smith and a Mr. Shifford took the contract of mining the coal and 
manufacturing the coke of the Chest Creek company, which is a branch of the 
Osceola company. In this last venture Mr. Smith, who still acts as mine foreman, 
has been successful. He is the oldest and one of the most trusted mine officials 
in the employ of the company. He is a republican in political opinion, and 
always supports his party at the polls.
    On July 3, 1872, Mr. Smith married Hannah Margaret Lamb, daughter of Peter 
Lamb, who came from England to Luzerne county about 1840. Mr. and Mrs. Smith 
have had six children: Mary, wife of Herbert Oldham, of Osceola, Clearfield 
county; Hattie; William, now attending Duff's Business college, of Pittsburg; 
George and Edward, who are both deceased; and James M., now with a mercantile 
firm of Hastings.