Northumberland-Montour County PA Archives Biographies.....Smith, Jacob 1839 - 

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Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com August 6, 2005, 5:18 am



Author: Biographical Publishing Co.



JACOB SMITH, a veteran of the Civil War and outside-foreman in the Sterling

Colliery near Shamokin, was born January 3, 1839, in Limestone township, Montour

County, Pa., and is a son of Frederick and Catherine (Miller) Smith.



  Grandfather Smith, a native of Reading, Berks County, Pa., removed to Columbia

County, thence to Montour County, and later back to Columbia County, where his

death occurred.



  Frederick Smith, our subject's father, is still living in Limestone township,

Montour County. He was born January 3, 1809, near Reading, Pa. He married

Catherine Miller and became the father of five children, three boys and. two

girls: Peter, who lives near Jerseytown, Pa.; Jacob, our subject; Matilda, who

married John Strickland; Mary, unmarried; and William, who is also single.



  Jacob Smith was educated in the public schools, attending for a limited time,

and then learned the harnessmaker's trade, working at it for three years prior

to the war and four years after. He then became an employee of the Bear Valley

Colliery and began work at the lowest round of the ladder in the coal region,

where he was allowed to remain only four or five months when he was promoted to

the position of outside-foreman. In that colliery he was retained by Heim &

Goodwill until it was sold to the Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company,

and then our subject went to the Burnside Colliery, where he remained three

years. He next moved to Delaware and engaged in farming for five years, at the

expiration of that period returning to Shamokin and assuming the position of

outside-foreman at the Sterling Colliery, where he has remained ever since. Mr.

Smith married Emma Kester, and to them have been born seven children: Jennie;

George; Andrew; Edith B.; Warren; and Clara and Emma, who both died at an early

age.



  When the necessity for volunteers became pressing in the Civil War Mr. Smith

enlisted in Company E, 131st Reg., Pa. Vol. Inf., on August 6, 1862, for nine

months, but served almost ten months. He participated in the battles of

Chancellorsville, Fredericksburg and Antietam. He was wounded in the terrible

battle of Fredericksburg. The total Union loss that day, killed and wounded, was

12,321, and the Confederate loss, killed and wounded, 5,309. To-day a National

Cemetery is on the ground where the battle was bloodiest and about 15,000 brave

soldiers are buried there.



  Our subject is a member of Lincoln Post, No. 140, G. A. R.; James A. Garfield

Lodge, No. 1061, I. O. O. F., and the Encampment in connection with same.





Additional Comments:

  Extracted from:

    

    Book of Biographies of the Seventeenth Congressional District

    Published by 

    Biographical Publishing Company of Chicago, Ill. and Buffalo, NY (1899)





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