William Smearbaugh

WILLIAM SMEARBAUGH, lumberman and merchant, Tionesta, was born in Tionesta township, Forest Co., Penn., October 7, 1854, and is a son of Ferdinand and Dorcas (Mathie) Smearbaugh, natives of Germany, who came to America in 1848, and settled in what is now Tionesta, engaging in farming. The father was a carpenter, which trade he followed to some extent, and as an agriculturist he cleared the farm now owned by Charles Leeper. He died in 1858, leaving two sons: Jacob and William. His widow afterward married Nicholas Weant, and by him she had one son, George Weant. The paternal grandfather of the subject of these lines was Christopher Smearbaugh, a cooper by trade, who settled in Tionesta in 1848, and died at the age of eighty-five years. Nicholas and Anna M. (Byers) Mathie, the maternal grandparents of William Smearbaugh, came from Hesse-Cassel. Germany, to Tionesta in 1848, and died there, aged eighty-five and eighty-four years, respectively. William Smearbaugh was reared in Tionesta, and received a limited education in the common schools. In 1881 he embarked in the hotel business at Tionesta, and conducted the Lawrence House two years. In 1883 he was elected treasurer of Forest county, serving one term of three years. In 1880 he engaged in mercantile business in Tionesta, with G. G. Butterfield, under the firm name of William Smearbaugh & Co., which they have since carried on; he has also been in the lumber business since 1886 along with William Lawrence, under the firm name of Lawrence & Smearbaugh. Mr. Smearbaugh married, March 22, 1881, Eva A., daughter of Daniel S. and Elizabeth (Spence) Knox, of Tionesta, and they have three daughters: Florence Marie, Helen and Josephine. Our subject is a member of the German Reformed Church, and of the A. O. U. W. Politically he is a Republican.

Source: Page(s) 940, Chapter 15 Biographical Sketches - Tionesta Township and Borough of Tionesta
Hickory and Harmony Townships
History of Counties of McKean, Elk and Forest, Pennsylvania.
Chicago, J.H. Beers & Co., 1890.
Transcribed December 2005 by Nathan Zipfel for the Forest County Genealogy Project
Published 2005 by the Forest County Pennsylvania Genealogy Project

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