Armstrong County PA Archives Biographies.....Smith, Robert Walter June 16, 1816 - December 6, 1881
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Patricia Bastik noemail@none.com May 20, 2025, 3:55 pm

Source: History of Armstrong County, Chicago: Waterman, Watkins and Co. 1883.
Author: Robert Walter Smith, Esq.

  ...Robert Walter Smith was born at Litchfield, New 
Hampshire, June 16, 1816, at the residence of his 
grandfather (on the maternal side), Judge Parker.  His 
great-grandfather, Capt. Ebenezer Smith, was an officer 
throughout the whole of the revolutionary war, and was 
appointed captain of the guard over Maj. Andre the night 
before his execution.  His grandfather, the Rev. David 
Smith, D. D., was at the time of his death in his 
ninety-fifth year, probably the oldest Yale College graduate 
in the United States.  His father, the late Rev. David M. 
Smith, was also a graduate of Yale College, being a member 
of the class of 1811.  He studied theology at Andover, 
Massachusetts, and was ordained a minister in the 
Presbyterian church.  For many years he was the stated 
missionary to the Tuscarora Indians.  He settled at 
Lewiston, and in connection with his missionary duties he 
presided for twelve years over a large school.  It was there 
that Robert Walter Smith laid the foundation for his future 
course. He was a very resolute, methodical and active boy.  
After leaving Lewiston, his father removed to Clinton, 
Oneida county, New York, and after preaching a year or so at 
Little Falls he removed to Stockbridge, in the same county; 
took charge of a very flourishing academy and also 
officiated as pastor of the Presbyterian church.  At this 
place the subject of our sketch was very thoroughly prepared 
for Hamilton College, from which he graduated in 1837.  He 
afterward read law in the office of Hon. Darius Pecet, a 
noted lawyer of Warsaw, New York.  After leaving there he 
was for a while principal of the Red Hood seminary.  From 
there he found his way to Saugerties, New York, but not 
being satisfied there he soon removed.  He next went to 
Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and from that place came to 
Kittanning.
  
  The time of Mr. Smith's location in Kittanning, where it 
was destined he was to pass the remainder of his days, was 
the year 1846.  Soon after his arrival he was associated in 
a law partnership with the late Judge Buffington, and 
remained with him for several years, afterward practicing 
alone.  He was the first county superintendent of schools, 
being appointed to fill that position by the governor of the 
state in 1856.  He served until 1860; was elected to the 
same office in 1863, and altogether occupied it over six 
years.  During that period he devoted himself very 
conscientiously to the duties of the office, and made an 
admirable superintendent.  From 1863 to 1876 he was editor 
of the Union Free Press, and performed his newspaper labors 
with the same care and thoroughness for which he was noted 
in other lines of employment.  He was mayor or burgess of 
the town for two terms, and held other municipal offices as 
well as many positions of private trust.
  
  He was a man of studious habits and literary tastes.  Very 
naturally, therefore, he was the chief promoter of the 
several fine lecture courses which the people of Kittanning 
enjoyed during the seventies.  Appropriately and by common 
consent the duty of introducing the lecturers was assigned 
to him, and it was one which he well performed.  He was also 
frequently called upon to address the people upon various 
subjects, and his history of Armstrong county in reality 
grew out of one of these addresses - the one delivered upon 
the centennial anniversary of independence at Cherry Run, in 
Plum Creek township. Conceiving the idea of writing an 
elaborate history of the county, he entered upon his 
arduous, self-imposed task with the determination of making 
it thorough and reliable.  Toward this end he toiled 
patiently for full five years.  How minute and painstaking 
was his research, and how devotedly he followed the tedious 
labor of collecting and collating facts, can be in some 
measure appreciated by whoever reads even a small portion of 
the volume, but the full measure of difficulty attending the 
work can only be understood by one who has attempted a 
similar production.  Mr. Smith labored with 
conscientiousness and zeal.  How deeply he was absorbed in 
his work (and also a glimpse of his method in writing the 
history and the regard which at least one man entertained 
for it) is shown by a paragraph from a letter written by him 
to the editor of the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and 
Biography, under date of April 5, 1880.  Mr. Smith says:
  
  I hope to finish my manuscript, if not too much 
interrupted, in a few months. I have maps of all the 
original surveys of tracts of land in this county, and have 
become much interested in tracing up whatever of interest 
has occurred on each one and locating the same on it, so 
that every original tract is touched more or less minutely, 
according to what has transpired on it.  You  may readily 
conclude that I occasionally get on to a sticking place 
which detains me for a considerable time.  It is encouraging 
to know that the facts which I have collected deeply 
interest people from different parts of the county, to whom 
I have read a few pages here and there of what I have 
written.  For instance, a farmer to whom I read a few pages 
one day, respecting a different locality from his own, 
became so deeply interested in the facts that he told 
another person that he meant to have a copy of the work if 
it should cost him $25.  So you see there are some very 
interesting facts connected with the history of this county.
  
  Sadly enough the author was not permitted the quiet 
satisfaction of seeing the book on which he had so long 
toiled come from the press.  He could not have been fully 
recompensed for his labor had he lived, but he might have 
been in some measure rewarded by the knowledge that its 
results were placed before the people.  He worked without 
expectation of adequate pecuniary return, but whether 
wittingly or not reared for himself a monument which will 
ever perpetuate his name among the people of the county in 
which he spent the last half of his life.
  
  Robert W. Smith, Esq., died December 6, 1881, at the home 
of his brother at Bronxville, Westchester county, New York, 
aged sixty-four years.  He had been in poor health for about 
two years prior to that time, and for a much briefer period 
so ill as to be incapacitated for his duties.  He had gone 
to his brother's upon a visit, thinking that change of 
scenery and air would restore his health, and his death was 
not expected by his friends. A meeting of the bar of 
Armstrong county was held upon the 9th of December, over 
which Edward S. Golden, Esq., presided, to take action upon 
the death of their deceased brother.  Appropriate remarks 
were made and tributes of respect paid to Mr. Smith's memory 
by Judge James B. Neale and others, and a committee was 
appointed to draft suitable resolutions to be engrossed upon 
the journal. Mr. Smith never attained a large law practice.  
He had not that kind of eloquence of art of speaking which 
is effective in the court-room, but he possessed a good 
knowledge of the law, and it was generally conceded was an 
able counselor.  His character was untarnished, and he held 
the respect of all with whom he was associated, whether 
professionally or otherwise.


This file has been created by a form at http://www.usgwarchives.net/pafiles/

File size: 7.8 Kb