Capt. Harvard P. Smith Biography


	This biography appears on pages 1000-1002 in "History of Dakota 
	Territory" by George W. Kingsbury, Vol. V (1915) and was 
	scanned, OCRed and edited by Maurice Krueger, mkrueger@iw.net.

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				CAPTAIN HARVARD P. SMITH. 

	Capt. Harvard P. Smith is a pioneer settler of Lake county, 
thirty-eight years having come and gone since he arrived within its 
borders. Great have been the changes which have since occurred and none 
have been more interested in the work of progress than Captain Smith, 
who has contributed in large measure to the agricultural advancement of 
his section of the state. Working diligently and with unfaltering 
determination to win success, recognizing the fact that industry is the 
basis of all honorable advancement, he progressed step by step, added 
to his holdings as his financial resources increased and became one of 
the large landowners of the county. He followed farming until recent 
years and then retired, putting aside active business cares to enjoy 
the fruits of his former toil. At the present writing he occupies a 
beautiful home in Madison and is surrounded by all of the comforts and 
some of the luxuries of life. 

	Captain Smith has passed the seventy-eighth milestone on life's 
journey, his birth having occurred at Hudson, New Hampshire, on the 8th 
of August, 1837. It was there that his father, Jefferson Smith, was 
born in 1801. The family lived in` the valley of the Merrimac before 
the establishment and development of the now thriving and growing 
manufacturing centers of Nashua, Lowell and Manchester. The paternal 
grandfather, Page Smith, was one of the early settlers of that section 
of New Hampshire, living there in colonial days. When the colonies 
attempted to throw off the yoke of British oppression he joined the 
Ticonderoga volunteers of 1777. His son Jefferson Smith, long a 
resident of the old Granite state, spent the last years of his life in 
Red Wing, Minnesota, where he passed away at the advanced age of 
eighty-two. He married Sarah Gibson, also a native of New Hampshire and 
a granddaughter of James Gibson, who was the first of the family born 
on American soil. He was serving in the office of representative at the 
time of the outbreak of the American revolution. He was a member of the 
committee of safety and was among the first to sign the oath of 
allegiance to the new government. For three years he did active service 
in framing and shaping the policy of the new republic, becoming a 
member of the constitutional convention in New Hampshire in 1791. His 
wife was a grandniece of Dr. Isaac Watts, writer of the famous sacred 
hymns. On the maternal side she traced her ancestry back to Benjamin 
Butterfield, who arrived in the Bay colony of Massachusetts in 1638, 
and upon the family record appears the name of Hannah Duston, the 
famous Indian scalper, and the names of various members who were active 
participants in the war for independence. 

	It will thus be seen that Captain H. P. Smith is descended from 
good old Revolutionary stock and the family characteristic of loyalty 
to country has ever been manifest in his career. He is the fourth son 
and seventh child in order of birth in a family of ten children, of 
whom nine reached adult age. His youthful days were spent in New 
Hampshire and when a youth of nineteen years he left New England for 
what was then the far west, arriving at Red Wing, Minnesota, in the 
spring of 1857. He taught in the first public schoolhouse built in that 
city and was also identified with other pioneer events. He did some 
survey work and helped and laid out many roads in Goodhue county, 
Minnesota. His work was, indeed, of notable to lay out many towns in 
the county. He was for several years deputy county surveyor value in 
the development and improvement of that section and in addition to his 
service of a public nature he was for a time employed by his brother as 
a clerk in a general store. In 1858 he made a trip to St. Louis and 
from that point proceeded up the Missouri river to where stood a single 
log house at Yankton townsite. He afterward returned to Red Wing, 
Minnesota, driving an ox team from Sioux City, Iowa, across the country 
to Red Wing. There he once more engaged in teaching school, being thus 
identified with the educational development of the county for a year. 
In 1861, however, he returned to his native state and, settling at 
Hudson, began the study of medicine, to which he devoted his time and 
efforts until after the outbreak of the Civil war. 

	Following the inauguration of hostilities between the north and 
south Mr. Smith enlisted in Company G. "Berdan's" United States 
Sharpshooters, with which he served for a little more than three years. 
He participated in nearly all of the important battles of the Army of 
the Potomac and was promoted to the captaincy of his company soon after 
the second battle of Bull Run. In that engagement he was severely 
wounded and taken prisoner, but returned to his command in time to 
participate in the engagements at Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, 
Gettysburg and a score of others of minor importance that occurred 
prior to the Battle of the Wilderness, in which Captain Smith was again 
wounded. Later, being disabled for active duty in the field, he was 
detailed for special duty at Washington, where he remained until 
mustered out of the service in December, 1864. 

	Captain Smith then returned to his old home in New England, but 
early in the following year brought his wife to the middle west, 
settling in Red Wing, Minnesota, where he began dealing in lime and 
stone, devoting his attention to that business until 1869, when he 
removed to Hardin county, Iowa. He next conducted a lumber yard at that 
point for nine years and at the same time carried on a successful 
business in buying land and dealing in live stock. The year 1878 
witnessed his arrival in Lake county, Dakota, where he secured a 
homestead and tree claim in the northwestern part of the county. There 
were, indeed, few settlements within the borders of the county at that 
period. It was a frontier region, in which the work of progress and 
development seemed scarcely begun. Mr. Smith hauled his lumber from 
Sioux Falls and built a little dwelling, which continued to be his home 
for fifteen years, or until 1893, when he took up his abode in Madison, 
erecting there a commodious residence, which remains as one of the 
finest homes in the city. In the meantime he has added to his original 
farm property and is now one of the extensive owners of farm lands in 
Lake county, having with his son about sixteen hundred acres, which is 
well stocked and improved and is situated about sixteen miles from 
Madison. He has won a very substantial measure of success in his 
carefully and intelligently directed farming arid stock-raising 
interests.

	On the 28th of January, 1864, Captain Smith was married to Miss 
Mary J. Andrews, the only daughter of Gilman and Sophia J. (Senter) 
Andrews, who were natives of New Hampshire. She was born in Hudson, New 
Hampshire, April 25, 1839, and spent her girlhood days there. Three 
children have been born unto Mr. and Mrs. Smith, namely: Fred A., who 
is with the Collier Publishing Company of New York city; Angie F., 
deceased; and George G., at home. 

	Politically Mr. Smith is independent and has long been an active 
worker in public matters. In 1889, he was elected to represent his 
district in the state senate, in which he served for one term. He also 
held the office of county commissioner of Lake county for three years, 
acting as its chairman for one year. Fraternally he is connected with 
the Sons of the American Revolution and with the Grand Army of the 
Republic, thus maintaining pleasant relations with the boys in blue 
with whom he tramped over the battlefields of the south. In recent 
years he has given much time to furthering local interests and 
promoting public progress. He has done most active and valuable work in 
support of the Chautauqua movement making the annual assemblies of 
great worth and interest to the public, bringing to the platform many 
renowned speakers, lecturers, musicians and entertainers. For a number 
of years he was president of the association and in 1913 was succeeded 
by his son. Although now seventy-eight years old, he is still as active 
as many men at fifty, notwithstanding that he served throughout the 
Civil war and was wounded several times. He came to South Dakota first 
in 1858, and has since been greatly interested in the growth, 
settlement and substantial improvement of the state. He is a splendid 
type of the pioneer citizen-a man of high character and genuine 
personal worth, respected and beloved by all who know him.