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Note: rn in 1831, not 1830.
Occupation: Farmer- Until Last 15 Yrs Street address: 5117 Race St. 44 Ward Residence: Cemetery name: Flint Hill Cem. Burial place: Newaark, Del. Burial date: 23 Aug 1911 Additional relatives: Film number: 1405442Digital GS number: 4009216 Image number: 507 Reference number: cn 20441 Collection: Pennsylvania, Philadelphia City Death Certificates, 1803-1915
a farmer, school teacher, held numerous minor political appointments such as justice of the peace, census taker, post master.
They moved to Philadelphia in 1901 with 3 or 4 youngest children after selling his share of his father's farm in WC). They both lived in White Clay Creek when, when William Henry was 41, they eloped to Philadelphia to marry. My father once told the story; the two came home and surprised everyone with the news that they were married.
They continued to live on the Smith farm in White Clay Creek for the next thirty years. He wrote a biographical and genealogical sketch of the Smiths for a Delaware Biographical and Genealogical Encyclopedia, around 1900.
They put all three sons through college in Delaware, then in Philadelphia Put his older two sons through school to become a doctor and a lawyer.
The Smith farm was in "the Wedge"; a section of land that repeatedly changed hands between London Britain, Chester County, PA, and Newark, New Castle County, Delaware. Today it belongs to Delaware. A somewhat larger area of land located in Chester and New Castle Counties and part of Cecil County Maryland is also loosely called "The Wedge"; and also called "White Clay Creek"; as the political boundaries had no effective meaning to where people lived, attended church, attended school, even held political office; only in terms of where they paid taxes, and people hotly did NOT want to be in Pennsylvania! The SMiths had a political identity, connections and careers in Delaware; this is likely to be another reason why in 1870 census, William Henry Sr who at the time lived with his mother on the family farm at the time in Pennsylvania, got himself enumerated in White Clay Creek Hundred, Delaware!
rom Biographical Encyclopedia of Delaware:
William Henry Smith, fifth in the family roll, was the third son of William and Mary Smith, and like those that went befre, as well as those that followed, was well drilled in the family school of obedience and industry, form which no one graduated until a score of years were fulfilled. The district school, with its winter term, was but an adjunct; but by these schools and schoolmasters his stock of knowledge was increased. Professor Alexander Terrell, an eminent scholar and mathematician, kept a select school in his own house for a score of years; in him, William H. Smith found a proficient instructor in the natural sciences and higher mathematics. The pupil, before he reached his majority, became a teacher, being employed at Rose Hill, a district school midway beween Wilmington and New Castle. Here he continued for six years, in the fifties. His attention was divided between the farm and the school-room until the death of his father, in 1863, when he settled permanently on the Smith homestead. William Henry Smith married Mary E. Thompson of Chester County of the Friend or Quaker persuasion. His eldest boy, Willard Thompson, graduated at Delaware College with first honor, in the class of ’92, and is now serving the fourth year as county superintendent of free schools of New Castle county with acceptance; Lawrence Dehaven and Wm H., Jr., are at this writing students in Delaware Collge. In 1888 W. H. Smith was appointed by Governor Biggs justice of the peace at Newark, he removed to that place and swerved a full term of seven years. In the fall of 1896 he was appointed postmaster in the same town by President Cleveland.
William Henry Smith, teacher and farmer, had served the public as justice of the peace, postmaster, notary public and census enumerator, as inspector of elections and school commissioner. When drafted for army service in 1863, he provided as substitute John E. Elliott, a Canadian, at a cost of $325. He is a Free Mason. William Henry Smith was married in Philadelphia, February 15, 1871, to Mary Emma, daughter of Ezra and Mary Thompson, of Chester County, PA, where she was born in 1845; originally a Friend, Mrs. Smith has become a member of the Methodist Church. Their children are: I. Willard Thompson, appointed superintendent of public schools for New Castle County, Del., by Governor Watson, reappointed the third time by Governor Tunnell, serving his fourth year; II. Lawrence DeHaven; III. Mary Miller; IV. William Henry, Jr; V. Amanda M.
Note: Death certificate from database, found by Joe Patterson, says he was bo
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