Webster County, West Virginia    Biography: Joseph Frank SMITH

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Submitted by Valerie Crook, <vfcrook@trellis.net>, March 1999
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The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc., 
Chicago and New York, Volume III, pg. 26-27

JOSEPH FRANK SMITH, who is more familiarly known by
his second personal name, is successfully conducting a hotel
in the Village of Cowen, Webster County, and is also the
owner and operator of a well improved farm in this local-
ity. He was born in Pleasants County, West Virginia,
August 4, 1866, and is a son of George L. and Margaret
E. (Frink) Smith, both natives of what is now Preston
County, this state, where the former was born in 1842 and
the latter in 1841, each having been reared on a pioneer
farm in that county. After their marriage the parents re-
mained on a farm in Preston County until their removal to
Pleasants County, where George L. Smith purchased a farm,
and he and his wife passed the remainder of their lives on
this homestead, he having accumulated and developed a val-
uable farm estate of 285 acres and his prosperity having
represented the results of his own energetic and well or-
dered activities. He and. his wife were zealous members
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and he was specially
active in the work of its Sunday school. Mr. Smith was a
stalwart republican in politics, and was loyal and public-
spirited as a citizen, he having served as a member of the
school board of his district. He survived his wife by many
years and was about fifty-six years of age at the time of
his death. Of their seven children there are living at the
time of this writing, in the spring of 1922: Joseph F., of
this sketch, the youngest of the number; William H., a
prosperous farmer near Cleveland, Ohio; and Mary, who is
the widow of James Biggs and resides at St. Marys, Pleas-
ants County, West Virginia. All of the other children at-
tained to maturity.

The home farm on which he was born was the stage of
the youthful activities of Joseph Frank Smith, and his early
educational discipline included that of the high school at
St. Marys. He initiated his independent career when he
was but sixteen years of age. He was employed in connec-
tion with the construction of the railroad line from Parkers-
burg to Kenova, where he served as superintendent of the
work, and he continued his association with this line of
railroad development about eight years. He purchased a
lot in Buckhannon, erected a house on the same and finally
sold the property at a distinct profit. After severing his
connection with railroad construction he purchased the
Summit Hotel at Cowen, and later he purchased a tract of
timber land. He cut and manufactured the timber on this
land, made development on the tract and eventually sold
the same for farm usages, his financial returns from the va-
rious activities and the sale having been very appreciable.
He is now the owner of the oldest farm in this section of
the county, and has made the same one of the model places
of this part of the state, the while he has here become a
leader in the breeding and raising of Hereford cattle, im-
proved Duroc-Jersey hogs, Shropshire sheep and White Leg-
horn poultry. His landed estate in Webster County com-
prises 300 acres. His original hotel at Cowen was destroyed
by fire, and he then purchased the Central Hotel, which he
has since successfully conducted. In connection with farm
industry and business activities Mr. Smith has stood expo-
nent of progressiveness, and the same may be said of his
attitude as a citizen, for he is always ready to lend co-
operation in the furtherance of measures and enterprises
protected for the general good of the community.

Mr. Smith has had much of leadership in connection with
the councils and campaign activities of the republican
party in Webster County, and has served as chairman of
its executive committee for this county. When he was made
the party nominee for county sheriff he was defeated by
only thirty-two votes, in a county that at that time gave a
normal democratic majority of 400 votes. In the Masonic
fraternity Mr. Smith is affiliated with Camden Lodge No.
107. A. V. and A. M.; Sutton Chapter No. 29, B. A. M.;
Button Commandery No. 16, Knights Templars; and Osiris
Temple of the Mystic Shrine in the City of Wheeling.

In 1894 Mr. Smith wedded Miss Dora E. Vance, who was
reared and educated in Webster County. They have three
children: Hosea A. is a graduate of the University of West
Virginia; Ruth K. graduated from the State Normal School
at Fairmont, and is, in 1922, in the extension department of
agriculture in connection with the University of West Vir-
ginia at Morgantown; and Joseph F., Jr., is a student in
Augusta Military Academy at Fort Defiance, Virginia. Mr.
and Mrs. Smith are active members of the Methodist Epis-
copal Church, of which he is serving as a member of the
official board.