| Notes |
- Source: Biographical Annals of Lasncaster Co., Pa., 1903 by J. H. Beers & Co., page 624-625.
CHARLES H. SMITH, successor to G. Harry Reed, at the Old Lakeland Stables, No. 153 North Queen street, Lancaster, is conducting the largest livery business in the city, and has been in charge of same since March 20, 1902. No better equipped establishment supplies the needs of a cosmopolitan community anywhere in the country. All manner of turnouts of modern construction are kept on hand, and a specialty is made of funeral and wedding rigs, equipages for pleasure parties and general driving, as well as busses and commercial wagons. About forty well groomed horses are kept in constant readiness, several of which present a dashing and spirited appearance before the tally-ho.
A native of Kinzers Station, Lancaster Co., Pa., Mr. Smith was born Feb. 11, 1872, son of John S. and Mary E. (Slaymaker) Smith, of Williamstown, this county. John S. Smith was a hotel man in early life, and conducted the "Kinzers Hotel" for eleven years, previous to which he had been connected with the "Williamstown Hotel" for six years. He was one of the first to raise tobacco in Lancaster county, and was the very first to bring seed tobacco here. People would come for miles around to see the plant grow, and so successful was Mr. Smith that he became the largest tobacco packer in the county, and made a fair fortune in that line. He also manufactured cigars, and dealt extensively in coal, lumber and grain. He was a man of force and determination, and possessed personal characteristics which kept him in the front of public affairs as long as he lived. Before entering the hotel business he had been a teacher, and he invariably kept abreast of the times, and was unusually well informed. Politics entered largely into his, active life, and he held many important positions at the request of his Republican allies, being active in promoting the interests of his party. He was justice of the peace for many years in Williamstown, and while at Kinzers was postmaster and ticket, freight and express agent. He was a member of the Presbyterian church, and contributed generously toward its maintenance. Mr. Smith died in 1885, at the age of fifty-five years, while yet at the height of his energetic and useful career. His wife died in 1879, at the age of forty-seven. They were the parents of the following children: Clara S., of Harrisburg, Pa., married Ezra W. Frantz, a railroad engineer; Sarah E. is the widow of John M. Eckert, of Cincinnati, Ohio; Mary S. is the wife of H. S. Armstrong, a railroad engineer of Philadelphia; Emma L. is the wife of Clem A. Hoar, clerk of Trego county, Kans.; Addie V. is the wife of Nimrod Smith, railroad postal clerk at Harrisburg, Pa.; Lizzie H. is the wife of A. Newton Hoar, station master at Huntington, Oregon; Charles H. is mentioned below. The paternal grandparents, John and Mary Smith, were natives of Lancaster county, where he engaged in the manufacture of harness and collars, and retired in later life.
For the first six years of his life Charles H. Smith lived with his parents in the hotel at Kinzers, where he was born. Then his father retired from the hotel business and moved his family to Lancaster for one year, during which time he erected a new home at Kinzers, whither he again removed his family, and where Charles lived
until 1885, when his father died. He was then thirteen years of age, and went to live with his sister, Mrs. Eckart, at Christiana, Pa., where he attended the high school for two years. Later he worked in a livery stable at Gap, Pa., for two years. In 1889, at the age of seventeen he returned to Lancaster, and held the position of mail messenger for two years, his employer being John F. Brimmer, at Brimmer's Livery. During this time he took a night course in Weidler's Business College, after which Mr. Brimmer took him into his office, where he held the position of clerk and bookkeeper for all three branches of Brimmer's extensive business--livery, leaf tobacco business and manufacture of cigars. In 1898, when Mr. Brirnmer sold out his livery business to G. Harry Reed, Mr. Smith became associated with the latter in the capacity of manager and as partner of ther new owner, and on March 20, 1902, himself purchased the entire business from Mr. Reed. Mr. Smith is a Republican in politics, and is fraternally connected with the Elks, Artisans and, Royal Arcanum. He was married Aug. 28, 1891, to Miss Eva B. Marrow, daughter of John W. Marrow, and of this union there is one son, Wilbur Grant.
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The H600 Project Genealogy DB
Abt 1835 - 