HISTORY NEBRASKA MANUSCRIPT FINDING AID
RG1412.AM: George Fillmore Smith, 1856-1933
Reminiscence: ca. 1930
Waterbury, Dixon County, Nebraska: Banker, ranch hand
Size: One item
BACKGROUND NOTE
George F. Smith, son of William Crandon and Mary Elizabeth Smith, was born February 7, 1856, near Hanover, Illinois. After the death of his mother when he was four years old, he lived with relatives. In 1870 Smith moved to northeastern Nebraska with his father. About ten years later, he relocated to Elliott, Iowa where he became a teacher. There he married Alzina E. Schoonover on March 20, 1883. They had two children.
After Alzina’s death in 1891, Smith returned to Nebraska, where he taught in and near Waterbury and Allen. He was a senior officer of the Waterbury State Bank for thirty-two years. He died in Waterbury on August 17, 1933.
SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE
This collection consists of one item, a reminiscence titled “A Trip to Market in the Early Days of Northeast Nebraska,” ca. 1930. In it George F. Smith looks back nearly sixty years to the summer of 1873 when he was a ranch hand on the Captain Burdick ranch along the Dixon/Cedar Counties border. He describes a trip made from northeastern Nebraska to Elk Point, Dakota Territory, transporting wheat. The trip included ferrying across the Missouri River and a stay in a Frenchman’s cabin in Dakota Territory. A typescript of the original reminiscence is included.
INVENTORY
Reminiscence by George F. Smith: A Trip to Market in the Early Days of Northeast Nebraska, ca. 1930 (typescript included)
Subject headings:
Overland journeys
Ranch life — Nebraska
Smith, George Fillmore, 1856-1933
AIF 10-11-2018
