Biography of
George Washington Smith, A. M.
p. 1714
GEORGE WASHINGTON SMITH, A. M.,
dean of men and head of the Department of History and Civics in the Southern
Illinois State Normal University, and author of the History of Southern Illinois
as published in this work, is a native Illinoisan. He was born near Greenfield,
Greene county, November 13, 1855.
Daniel Smith,
a Virginian, of Patrick
county, was born about 1740. He was the oldest of these brothers, namely:
Daniel, John, Peter
and
Flemon.
These brothers were all engaged in the battle of Cowpens, fought January 17,
1781.
During the earlier years of the
Revolutionary war
Daniel married
Miss Reeves and from this marriage there were
six children, as follows:
Charles, Mollie, Peter, Elizabeth,
James and
John M. The last named son,
John, was the grandfather of
Prof.
Smith. John M. Smith was born in Henry county, Virginia, April 23, 1781. He
married
Rachel Packwood in Patrick county, Virginia, about the year 1800, or
1802. The
Packwoods were a numerous people in Virginia and helped to subdue the
savages and the wilderness.
Rachel Packwood‘s grandfather was captured by the
Indians on Greenbrier river, a branch of the Great Kanawha, in 1710, taken to
Chillicothe, Ohio, and there burned at the stake by the Chillicothe Indians in
the presence of relatives and neighbors.
From the marriage of
John M. Smith
and
Rachel Packwood
there
P. 1715
were born twelve children—Nancy,
Samuel, Daniel, Stephen, Edith, Larkin, Elizabeth, Rachel, Exoney, Folly, Lucy
and
John.
Stephen Smith, the fourth child of
John M. Smith, was the father of
Prof. Smith. He was born in Patrick county,
Virginia, May 23, 1809. When about two years old his parents moved to Cumberland
county, Kentucky, and settled on Mud Camp creek, a tributary of the Cumberland
river. Here
Stephen grew to manhood. He worked much in the timber and in the
building of flatboats. He was an expert axeman and skilled in boat building. He
made several trips to New Orleans with flatboats between 1828 and 1838. The
13th of September, 1836, he married
Sallie Martin Pace, a young lady who lived in the valley of the Marrowbone
creek, at the mouth of which lay the county seat town of Burkesville.
Sallie M. Pace represented a family name which had
been common in Virginia since the days of the Indian massacre of 1622. She was
born February 22, 1816. Her grandfather,
Captain John Pace, was born in Henry
county, Virginia, May 28, 1751, and died August 20, 1825. He was a captain in
the Revolutionary war. His son,
John Pace, was born January 1, 1787, and died
October 11, 1823. He was the father of
Sallie Martin Pace, the mother of
Prof.
Smith. John Pace married
Nancy Alexander who was born March 13, 1793, and died
September 9, 1844, and from this marriage there were born eight children—Milly,
Lucy, Greenville, Sally, Frances, Robert, Julia and Elizabeth. Sally M. Pace,
the fourth child, married
Stephen Smith, and they became the parents of nine
children:
Thomas, Greenville, Nancy, Edward, James, William, John, George and
Martha.
The
Alexanders
were prominent people in Virginia. They were of Scotch descent
and belonged to the “Campbell Clan.”
John Alexander
married
Maryart Gleason
in
Glasgow, Scotland, in 1735. They came to Nottingham, Chester county,
Pennsylvania, and from there to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and hence to Berkley
county, Virginia. Two nephews of
John Alexander
moved to Mecklenburg county, N.
C., and they
and their descendants took part in
the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence, in May, 1775, five
Alexanders
signing that document.
Captain John Alexander
was born in
Berkley county, Virginia, in 1741, and moved to Kentucky in 1805. His oldest
child,
Thomas,
married
Mollie Ramey,
and their daughter,
Nancy,
married
John
Pace,
the son of
Captain John Pace.
Stephen Smith and his wife and two
children moved from Cumberland county, Kentucky, and settled nine miles east of
White Hall in Greene county, Illinois, in the year 1840. The homestead was seven
miles north and some west of Greenfield. Here they lived a full half century and
reared a large and respectable family of nine children. The oldest,
Thomas
Alexander, grew up to the occupation of farming. He taught school and at the
breaking out of the Civil war enlisted in Company D, 32d regiment, Illinois
infantry, whose colonel was Dr. John Logan of Carlinville, Illinois, a cousin of Gen. John A. Logan. He became first lieutenant and acting captain. He resigned
when Sherman started to the sea. He is now living near Willows, Glenn county,
California. Greenville T., second son, was a sergeant in Company D, 32nd
regiment, Illinois infantry. He marched with Sherman to the sea and in the Grand
Review in Washington. He died in 1877 of disease contracted in the army.
Nancy
Jane married James Sanders, a musician, in the above company and regiment. She
lives in Beatrice, Nebraska. Edward Bonaparte served in Company C, 133d
regiment, Illinois infantry. He lives in White Hall, Illinois. James Turner is
a retired
P. 1716
farmer living in Greenfield,
Illinois. William Fountain is a business man of Roodhouse, Illinois.
John
Clayton is a traveling salesman; he lives at Willows, California,
George
Washington
is head of the department of History and Civics in the State Normal
University, Carbondale.
Martha Belle
married
Thomas Ashburn; she lives in Decatur, Illinois.
George
was a lad of seven or eight
when the war was in progress. He was deeply interested in the outcome of the
conflict, and remembers the presence of soldiers in the neighborhood sent by the
authorities to arrest deserters and rebel sympathizers. He attended the country
schools and has a very warm place in his memory for his teachers, among whom he
recalls
Miss Winnie Beason, Miss Sarah Mason, Captain John Parks
and
Esquire
Richard Short.
The school house was on the corner of his father’s farm and was therefore easy
of access.
In the fall of 1874 he entered
Blackburn University, Carlinville, Illinois, where he pursued advanced studies
for one year when he was obliged to sever his connection with the school and
devote himself to teaching. After teaching for a couple of years he returned to
college, but was obliged to return to teaching, after another year in college.
But his love of study kept him at work, and within a few years he was able to
pass successfully the state examination for life certificate. Prof. Smith
is very proud of this certificate of professional attainment, more particularly
since it was issued by the Hon. Henry Raab.
Prof. Smith
had now taught in several
of the best rural schools in the county, and in the fall of 1883 he was called
to the principalship of the White Hall High School. At the end of this year he
was elected to the superintendency of the Perry Pike county schools. Before
taking up his new duties in Perry he was married to
Miss Nellie Adams,
a popular teacher of White Hall.
Miss Nellie Adams
was a direct descendant of
Gov. William Bradford
of Plymouth, Massachusetts.
Governor
Bradford’s
son by his second wife
was
Major Wm. Bradford,
whose third son,
Thomas,
married
Anne Fitch,
daughter of
the
Rev. James Fitch
of Norwich, Connecticut.
Major Bradford‘s
son was
Lieutenant
James Bradford.
His daughter,
Sarah Bradford,
married
Joseph Adams
of
Canterbury, Connecticut. From this marriage came
James Adams
who married
Jerusha
Knight.
They had two sons,
James Adams
and
Elisha Adams. Elisha Adams
married
Clarisa Cook.
From this union there were thirteen children. On January 27, 1809,
there was born to this marriage twin sons,
Edward
and
Edwin Ruthven Adams.
Edwin
married
Ellen Parsons
of Chardon, Ohio. The Parsons were a numerous family
in northeastern
Ohio. Nellie Adams
was therefore the ninth generation removed
from
Governor Bradford
of Plymouth. The
Adamses
lived in Canterbury,
Connecticut; later in Landaff, New Hampshire, and still
later at Rutland,
Vermont. From the latter place
Edwin
and his wife came to White Hall, Greene
county, in 1856, where
Nellie Adams
was born, August 7, 1862.
The year’s work in Perry was very
successful and
Prof. Smith was retained at an increase in salary, but on July
24, 1885,
Mrs. Smith died, leaving a son,
Clyde Leon.
Prof. Smith
did not return to Perry.
He resigned the work there and taught in White Hall the coming year. In the
spring of 1886 he was elected superintendent of the city schools of White Hall,
which position he held four years. During the six years he was in the White
Hall schools he was closely associated with
Prof. David Felmley,
superintendent of the Carrollton schools, and with county superintendent of
schools,
P. 1717
Mr. Wm. J. Roberts,
and he feels
greatly indebted to these men for sympathy and encouragement in his work.
In 1890
Prof. Smith
was elected to
the position of training teacher in the Southern Illinois State Normal
University
at Carbondale. On June 16, 1888, he was married to
Miss Nettie Caroline Adams,
a
sister to his former wife. In the fall of 1890 they took up their work in the
Normal where for twenty-two years
Prof. Smith
has been a valuable member of the
faculty. He held the position of training teacher for seven years and was then
transferred to the
Department of History and Geography. Later the work in
Geography was given to
Prof. F. H. Colyer
who had been associated in the work
with
Prof. Smith.
In 1894
Prof. Smith
arranged the
topics for the Course of Study for the schools of Illinois. Later he published
Notes on United States History to accompany the course of study. In 1906 he
published the first text on Illinois History, a work of unusual merit.
Prof.
Smith
has been a director in the State Historical Society for the past ten years
and has contributed to the work of that organization.
No person has done more for the
community in which he has lived. He has always been found in the front ranks of
all movements looking toward a better community life. He has been an elder in
the Christian church for nearly twenty years; has been superintendent of the
Bible School, assisted with the music, and in other ways contributed to the
ongoing of the work. For fifteen years he was a director in the local building
and Loan Association, and for the past nine years he has served on the city
Board of Education. Within this period the schools have made great progress.
Salaries have been nearly doubled, the number of teachers increased, and new
buildings erected. Domestic science, manual training, music and art have been
placed in the curriculum.
Prof. Smith
has done a valuable work
in the county institutes. He finds time to do a few weeks’ work each year and
his work is always appreciated.
At the last meeting of the Board of
Trustees of the Normal University
Prof. Smith was made “Dean of Men,” a position
of honor and responsibility. He has been secretary of the faculty for the past
seventeen years. He is greatly esteemed by faculty and students.
Prof.
and
Mrs. Smith
have three
children:
Helen Christine, Eugene Russell
and
Frances Adams. Helen
has just
finished the course in the Normal.
Russell
is a student in the Tennessee
Military Institute at Sweetwater, Tenn., while
Frances
is in the fourth grade in
the Training School of the Normal.
Clyde,
the oldest son, married
Miss Mary
Powers
of Owensboro, Kentucky, and is a
prominent young business man in Carbondale.
Prof. Smith is in the prime of life
and looks forward to many years of useful service to his family and to the world
in which he lives.
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