Richard B. Smith [RG1416.AM]

HISTORY NEBRASKA MANUSCRIPT FINDING AID



RG1416.AM:  Richard B. Smith, 1830-?



Letter:  1867

Peru, Nemaha County, Nebraska:  Blacksmith

Size:  One letter



BACKGROUND NOTE



Biographical information on R. B. Smith was gleaned from various census and newspaper sources.  Smith was born in June 1830 probably in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.  With his brother W. W. (Warren), he operated a blacksmith business in Peru, Nebraska, from around 1862 to 1869.  He served as a justice of the peace in Peru during the 1870s and continued as a blacksmith until at least 1900, when he appeared for the last time on the Peru census.  That census shows that he had been married to his wife, Margaret, for forty-four years.



SCOPE AND CONTENT NOTE



This collection consists of one letter (photocopy only), December 8, 1867, from R. B. Smith to his father, Benjamin Smith, who lived in Wyoming County, Pennsylvania.  In this letter, R. B., writing from Grand Island Station, tells his father about the “sea of Desert land” he sees while working for the Union Pacific Railroad.  He states that the hundreds of thousands of acres of land he has seen are “not fit for cultivation and will lay to waste for a century…” 



INVENTORY



Letter (photocopy) from R. B. Smith to Benjamin Smith, Dec. 8, 1867



 



Subject headings:



Nebraska — Description and travel

Smith, Richard B., 1830-

Union Pacific Railroad Company



 



Revised AIF          08-01-2019

 

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