Smith, Guy W.

Born: 1792-05-06 Jessamine County, Kentucky

Died: 1879-01-30 Des Moines County, Iowa

Flourished: Crawford County, Illinois

Smith was an early settler of Crawford County, Illinois. During the War of 1812, Smith served as a private in Captain Martin H. Wickcliffe's company of Kentucky Mounted Volunteers. After the war, Smith moved west, arriving in Illinois by 1815. He initially settled in Kaskaskia. From 1818 to 1819, Smith represented Edwards County in the Illinois Senate. By 1820, he and his family were residing in Palestine, Illinois. From 1820 to 1839, he served as receiver at the U.S. General Land Office in Palestine. He also worked as a farmer and purchased large tracts of land in Gallatin, Vermillion, Wabash, Crawford, and Edgar counties. In August 1842, voters in Crawford and Jasper counties elected Smith as a Whig to the Illinois House of Representatives. He lost his bid for re-election in 1844. In 1850, Smith was farming in Crawford County and owned $6,000 worth of real estate. In the early 1850s, Smith and his family moved first to Burlington, Iowa, and later to a farm near Davenport, Iowa. In 1860, he was living in Des Moines County and owned real estate valued at $15,070 and had a personal estate of $2,200. Smith married Eliza Brown in 1819; she bore him one daughter before dying in 1821. In 1824, he wed Juretta Wilson.

William Henry Perrin ed., History of Crawford and Clark Counties, Illinois (Chicago: O. L. Baskin, 1883), 140, 143, 248, 250; Report of the Adjutant General of the State of Kentucky: Soldiers of the War of 1812 (Frankfort, KY: E. Polk Johnson, 1891), 147; For a detailed list of Smith's land purchases, search "Smith Guy W," Illinois Public Domain Land Tract Sales, https://www.ilsos.gov/isa/landsrch.jsp; John Clayton, comp., The Illinois Fact Book and Historical Almanac 1673-1968 (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1970), 197, 211; Theodore C. Pease, ed., Illinois Election Returns, 1818-1848, vol. 18 of Collections of the Illinois State Historical Library (Springfield: Illinois State Historical Library, 1923), 185, 373, 384; U.S. Census Office, Seventh Census of the United States (1850), Crawford County, IL, 251; "Application for Membership, Elmer Joe Smith," Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970, Louisville, Kentucky: National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution; U.S. Census Office, Eighth Census of the United States (1860), Des Moines County, IA, 137; Illinois Statewide Marriage Index, Randolph County, 14 April 1819; Crawford County, 1 March 1824, Illinois State Archives, Springfield, IL; Newton Bateman and Paul Selby, ed., Illinois Historical Crawford County Biographical, ed. by Paul Selby (Chicago: Munsell, 1909; reprint ed., Evansville, IN: Unigraphic, 1978), 809.