BIO: John N. SMITH, Clearfield County, PA
 
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From Twentieth Century History of Clearfield County, Pennsylvania,
and Representative Citizens, by Roland D. Swoope, Jr.,
Chicago: Richmond-Arnold Publishing Company, 1911, pages 941 & 942.
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  JOHN N. SMITH, a representative business man of Irvona, Pa., where he conducts 
a general store, was born in Beccaria township, Clearfield county, Pa., two 
miles north of Utahville, February 22, 1854, and is a son of Joseph M. and 
Fannie (Shoff) Smith.  He is a great grandson of Evi Smith, who came to New 
Jersey from Ludgate Hill, London, England.  It is known that Evi had three 
children - two daughters and a son.  The latter, Samuel M. by name, was born in 
New Jersey in 1796, and died in Clearfield county in 1865, at the age of sixty-
nine years.  He married Ann Monroe, a member of the family from which sprang 
James Monroe, the fifth president of the United States.  Of this marriage the 
following children were born:  Joseph M., the father of our subject (deceased): 
Elizabeth, Mary A. and Evi, all three deceased; Samuel, who is living in 
Virginia; William and David, both of whom are deceased; Sarah, who is the widow 
of Philip Lusher; and Jane, who is the wife of David Persing, of Houtzdale.  
Samuel Smith, father of the above mentioned children, resided in Clearfield 
county and was an elder in the Hagerty Cross Roads Presbyterian church.  By a 
second marriage he had one son, James who lives in Iowa.
  Joseph M. Smith, father of our subject, was born in Clearfield county, Pa., in 
1819 and was a farmer by occupation.  An active and useful citizen, in early 
days he gave his support to the Whig party, subsequently joined the "Know-
Nothing" party, and afterwards became a Republican.  He served for a number of 
years as assistant deputy sheriff under Sheriff Perks.  For sixty-two years he 
was a member of the church, in earlier life being a Presbyterian, but later 
joining the Methodists.  His first marriage was to Fannie Shoff, of Pennsylvania 
Dutch extraction and lived near Hagerty's Cross Roads, in Clearfield county.  
Seven children were born to this union, those now living being as follows:  
Josiah W., who lives on his grandfather's old homestead near Glen Hope; William 
M., who is in the employ of the Standard Oil Company, at Sistersville, W. Va.; 
Abraham C., who is a farmer at Utahville; Levi, who is with the Prairie Oil and 
gas Company at Glen Pool, Okla.  A half brother, Edward B., is with the Pacific 
Telephone Company and is also in the real estate business at Seattle, Wash.  
Joseph M. Smith died in 1896 at the age of seventy-seven years.  His second 
marriage was to Mrs. Rebecca (Hunter) Gallagher, who was born in Iowa and is now 
a resident of Seattle, Wash.
  John N. Smith in his boyhood attended school at Mt. Pleasant and at Hagerty's 
Cross Roads.  He then began to assist his father on the home farm, and he 
subsequently followed agriculture until May 7, 1886, with some intervals also 
devoted to work in the woods.  On the date last mentioned he came to Irvona, 
where he erected his present building, and since 1892 he has been prosperously 
engaged in a general mercantile business.  His entire life up to date has been 
spent in Clearfield county, and he belongs to one of its oldest families, dating 
from 1818, when it took his grandfather two weeks to make the overland trip from 
Philadelphia.  Joseph M. Smith, our subject's father, spent seven years in that 
city, but in 1825 was brought to Clearfield county again.  The old homestead is 
still owned by his son, Josiah W. Smith.
  In 1875, John N. Smith was married to Miss Almira Litz, who died November 2, 
1910.  She was a daughter of John Litz, a farmer of Beccaria township.  One son, 
John Monroe, was born to this marriage, who is a civil engineer, a graduate of 
the Westchester Normal School, and later of the Massachusetts Institute of 
Technology at Boston, Mass., and since May, 1909, has been city engineer at 
McKeesport, Pa.  He was engineer and superintendent of construction for the new 
plant of the National Tube Company at McKeesport, the building being the largest 
of its kind in the world.  He married Miss Francelia S. Huntley, a daughter of 
Hon. George W. Huntley, and they have two sons, Conrad Litz and William Huntley.
  John N. Smith is a member of McKeesport Lodge, No. 171, K. P., at Irvona, and 
of the I. O. H. at Coalport.  For the past nineteen years he has been a member 
of the First Presbyterian church at Irvona.