William Reed Smith

Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, 1847–1868 Allen Taylor Company (1849)

Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, 1847–1868 Chester Loveland Company (1857)

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Birth: Aug. 11, 1826 Ontario, Canada

Death: Jan. 15, 1894 Centerville Davis County Utah, USA

William Reed Smith

Peter Smith, a native of the New England States, moved to Ontario, Canada, with his parents about the time of the Revolutionary War. Here he met and married Mary Reed, daughter of Major William Reed of the British Army. Nine children, seven daughters and two sons, were born to them. William Reed, the youngest, was born August 11, 1826 near Farmersville in Ontario. The older son, George, died in early childhood. William was left an orphan before he was three years of age.

After the death of his parents, William was taken into the home of Samuel Parrish. These kind neighbors were Quakers from whom William received a deep religious training during his childhood. The opportunity for an education was meager in those days so William attended school only six months. He was very fond of studying and reading which enabled him to become a fairly well self-educated man.

Some of his sisters remained in Ontario, others moved to Saratoga Springs, New York. In the fall of 1837, William moved with his foster parents and their family to Stark County, Illinois. It was about this time that the new sect, the Latter-Day Saints, were building their beautiful city of Nauvoo. Mormon Elders came up in Stark County, Illinois. The Parrishes and William Reed Smith became interested in their teachings. Elder John Gaylord baptized William in August 1841. He went to Nauvoo and lived there for a year and a half after his conversion. He contracted malaria, from which he suffered as long as he remained there. He returned to Stark County early in 1844.

He left the Parrish home when he was sixteen and went into the business of stock raising. In 1849 he joined the Mormon immigrants, becoming a part of the Austin Grant Company bound for the Rocky Mountains. They arrived in Salt Lake Valley in the late summer of that year.

The Parrish family had come to Utah in the fall of 1847 and had settled in Centerville on what was then known, and still is, as "Parrish Creek." William naturally hunted up his kindly foster parents and settled near them on land south of their property, most of it being on the west side of the main road running from Parrish Lane to B.H. Roberts Street.

A History of William Reed Smith and His Families, compiled by Mahala Smith Parrish & John F. Parrish, 1953.

Family links:

Spouse:

• Mary Elizabeth Ricks Smith (1843 - 1929)*

Children:

• Mary Eleanor Smith Smith (1858 - 1936)*
• Clara Smith Smith Cleveland (1877 - 1971)*

Burial: Centerville City Cemetery Centerville Davis County Utah, USA Plot: A-20-3-7