Joseph Smith
was a farmer by
occupation, and on first settling in Illinois located at Equality, where he
had friends. Subsequently he rented the Crenshaw farm, three miles south of
Ridgeway, but during the fall of 1849 came to the present farm of
Virginius
W. Smith, located one mile east of Ridgway, where he purchased eighty acres
of land, for about $500. Fifteen acres of this land were cleared and a small
log cabin had been erected thereon, and here Mr. Joseph Smith started to
develop a farm, it being very conveniently located, as it was but a two or
three-hour journey to Equality, about eight miles, and three or four hours
to New Haven, which was ten miles away, although the land at that time was
all a wilderness and there had not yet been a settlement made at Ridgway.
Joseph Smith started a store at New Market, one-half mile south of his home,
but later all the business there was removed to Ridgway. He continued to
operate his farm, putting a great deal of it under cultivation, and served
for some years as justice of the peace, to which office he had been elected
as a Democrat. His death occurred in May, 1863, when not much past
fifty-five years, his widow surviving until 1895 and being seventy-three
years old at the time of her death. They had the following children: Virginius W.; Dennis, a soldier, a member of the One Hundred and
Thirty-first Illinois Regiment, who died at Vicksburg, Mississippi, in 1863; Margaret, who died as a young married woman; John F., a farmer, who died in
1911, at the age of fifty-five years; Catherine, who married John Hammersley and died at the age of thirty years; Christopher, a farmer
near Eldorado, Illinois; and Lucinda who married
Thomas Riley and died when
about forty years of age.
Virginius W. Smith
received his education in the public
schools of the vicinity of the
home farm, and remained with his parents until the outbreak of the Civil
War. In August, 1861, he enlisted in Company D, Twenty-ninth Regiment,
Illinois Volunteer Infantry, a company recruited about New Haven
Captain
Whiting, and with this organization he served until securing his honorable
discharge, November 20, 1864. This regiment saw some of the hardest
fighting of the war, and among its battles may be mentioned Belmont,
Missouri; Columbus, Kentucky; Paducah and Forts Henry and Donelson, Shiloh,
Corinth, Jackson, second Corinth, Holly Springs and Coldwater. The regiment
was captured at Holly Springs but his company, with another, was sent back
on detail to Jackson Tennessee. In April, 1863, the regiment was sent to
Vicksburg to man the gunboat “Tyler,” as sharpshooters, on the Mississippi
and Yazoo rivers, and this boat was constantly in the severest part of each
action. At the battle of Vicksburg the vessel was sent to the Arkansas side
to ward off the Confederate Generals Marmaduke and
Price, and after this
engagement Mr. Smith and his companions rejoined their regiment, which in
the meantime had been exchanged. They were on guard at Vicksburg and on the
Black river until Sherman’s Atlanta campaign, as far as Jackson, but
eventually were sent back to Vicksburg, and Mr. Smith then became a member
of a scouting party which went to Natchez, and at that point he received his
honorable discharge. He had been twice wounded, in the left side and right
leg, and the effects of these
P. 1307
injuries did not entirely pass
away for a long period. On his return to Illinois he again took up farming,
and for five years rented a property, then purchased forty acres, which he
sold after developing, and eventually purchased one hundred and twenty
acres, to which from time to time he added until he now has a magnificent
tract of three hundred and forty acres, including the old family homestead.
For some of this land he paid only ten dollars per acre, and when he bought
the homestead it cost him only forty-three dollars per acre, this land now
being all worth upwards of one hundred dollars per acre. His large,
comfortable home is situated on a hill one mile east of Ridgely, and his
other buildings are well built and modern in equipment. Mr. Smith raises
wheat and corn, and gives a good deal of attention to the raising of
pure-bred stock. He was one of the original stockholders of the First
National Bank of Ridgway, but outside of this has given most of his time and
attention to his farm. He has done more than one thousand dollars worth of
tiling, and his land is perfectly drained and ditched, although at first
much of it was swampy and unproductive. Modern methods, however, have done
much for this property, and it is nearly, all now black soil. Mr. Smith
is a
Republican in politics, cast his first vote for Abraham Lincoln in 1864,
and for ten years has served as supervisor of his township. He is a popular
comrade of Loomis Post, Grand Army of the Republic. On the breaking out of
the Spanish-American war in 1898, a regiment was organized and Virginius W.
Smith was appointed captain, awaiting the call of his country, but the
service was not required, there being no more calls necessary for troops.
In 1875
Mr. Smith was united in marriage with
Miss Sarah McDermott, who
died less than two years later, leaving one child:
Joseph, who is now
engaged in cultivating a part of the home farm. In 1900 he was married to
Orvilla Sham, a native of Gallatin county, and three children have been born
to them:
Susie, Eliza and
Virginius, Jr. Mr. and Mrs. Smith have numerous
friends in this part of Gallatin county. He is remembered as a brave and
faithful soldier during the war, and he has discharged his duties just as
faithfully as a private citizen. His success has been the result of his own
efforts and
his career is typical of the
successful American agriculturist.
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