Biography of Ezra Delos Smith

Excerpted from "Collections of the Kansas State Historical Society, 1911-1912", Edited by Geo. W. Martin, Secretary. 
Vol XII., State Printing Office, Topeka, Kansas 1912.

submitted by Teresa Lindquist (merope@radix.net); (copyright) 2001 by Teresa Lindquist
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EZRA DELOS SMITH was born in Grant county, Wisconsin, November 9, 1854, the son of Ira A. and Maria (Isbell) Smith. His 
grandfather, Ralph Smith, married a Miss Simons, granddaughter of a niece of Charles Stuart of England. The Smiths came to 
the Plymouth colony soon after the Mayflower. They went into the wilderness, settling in New Hampshire. His great-
grandfather, Jedediah Smith, moved to western New York while the Mohawks were still there; from there he moved to 
Ashtabula, Ohio, about 1805, but had lived a while near Erie. Jedediah Strong Smith, the great explorer, was a brother of 
Ralph Smith. The great-grandfather, Jedediah Smith, had fourteen children, of whom nine lived to old age. They were 
pioneers in Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Utah and California. E. D. Smith's mother's people left France the morning 
after the St. Bartholomew massacre (it closed September 17, 1572), reaching St. Augustine. Fla., but soon after going to 
Canada. They next settled in western New York, then drifted through Ohio into Indiana. Young Smith's grandfather, Ezra T. 
Isbell, built the first business house in Kendallville, Ind. The next move of the Ira A. Smith family was to Dekalb county, 
Missouri, in 1868. Ezra D. was self-educated. He spent several years as a farm hand in Iowa. In 1882 he married Miss Clara 
V. Haas. He moved to Meade Center, Kan., January 6, 1886, where he found the people celebrating the location of the county 
seat. Later he was elected justice of the peace, read law, and was admitted to the bar. He has two sons and one daughter. 
The story of his great-uncle, Jedediah S. Smith, is one of the most interesting in the development of the midcontinent, 
mountain and Pacific slope sections of the country.

(Included with the article: "Jedidiah Smith and the Settlement of Kansas" page 252)