Biographical Sketch of

Francis L. Smith

Transcribed by Barbara Voss for the Marquette Co WI Pages


Source: Portrait and Biographical Album of Green Lake, Marquette and Waushara Counties, Wisconsin, 
published 1890 by Acme Publishing Co., Chicago, Page 665 


Francis L. Smith, who is engaged in farming and stock rising on section 22, in the town of Berlin, Green Lake 
County, is a representative of one of the pioneer families which deserves special mention in this volume. He is 
a native of Washington County, N.Y., and first saw the light of day August 16, 1823. With his parents, James B. 
and Sophronia (Lloyd) Smith, he removed to Saratoga County, the father keeping a hotel in Saratoga Springs. In 
1837, accompanied by his family, he emigrated to the West, locating in La Porte County, Indiana but as the climate 
there did not agree with the health of his wife and children, he remained but a short time and went to Cleveland, 
Ohio, where he died in 1838. Soon afterward the family returned to Indiana, where the mother passed away in 1845. 
She was an exemplary member of the Baptist Church. She and her husband by their upright lives won friends wherever 
they went. In their family there were five children, four sons and one daughter, two of the sons, Francis L. and 
Horace D. being residents of Green Lake County. 

Our subject was the second in order of birth. He was fitted for life by a good common school education and on going 
to Indiana, started out for himself. After working for his grandfather for about two years, he and his brother rented 
a farm, on which he continued to make his home while residing in the Hoosier State. On the 30th of December, 1846, 
he chose for a life companion Miss Cordelia Payne, who was born in Genesee County, N.Y., December 29, 1827 and is 
a daughter of Erastus and Jerusha (Bunce) Payne, who removed to La Porte County, Indiana, when Cordelia was a child 
of six years. 

In the autumn of 1850 Mr. Smith located on the farm where he now makes his home, having come to the West with the 
hope of bettering his financial condition. His sole property at that time consisted of a team and wagon, which he 
traded to Asa Bunce for fifty three acres of land, which he at once began to improve, using an unbroken yoke of 
oxen for the purpose of breaking the sod. That formed the nucleus of his present possessions, the farm now comprising 
220 acres, 110 of which are owned by his son. He has made many excellent improvements, raises a good grade of stock 
and has a neat and tasty home. 

To Mr. and Mrs. Smith has been born one child, Lorenzo F., who was born in the town of Berlin, November 19, 1854 and 
on the 5th of February, 1875, married Miss Etta, daughter of Benjamin R. and Sarah A. (Mattison) Saxton. He is a most 
enterprising young business man and like his father, is numbered among the progressive farmers of the town of Berlin.







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