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
