Bio: Smith, Rev. Charles A. (History)

Contact: Janet Schwarze

Surnames: SMITH SWARTZWOUT MILES BURCH BRASIER

----Source: 1891 Biographical History of Clark Jackson Counties Wisconsin

Rev. Charles A. Smith
 

The Rev. Charles A. Smith, a farmer on section 23, Loyal Township, and a minister of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, was born in Penn Yan, Yates County, New York, a son of Albert W. and Harriet A. (Swartzwout) Smith, natives of Steuben County, same state, who, in 1843, settled in Waukesha County, Wisconsin later they removed to Plover, Portage County, where Mrs. Smith died, in 1849, aged about twenty-nine years. He afterward returned to Waukesha County, but now lives in Monroe County, this State, aged seventy-four years. He has been a farmer and a minister of the Free Will Baptist Church, beginning to preach when about twenty-one years of age. Exercising his ministerial gifts only in a sparsely settled county of pioneers and having met with many financial reverses, his treasures of the earth are at present not very extensive. He has had seven children, viz.: George, Charles A. Adaline, Emma, Eli, Elias, and Judson, of whom the eldest and three youngest are deceased.

Mr. Smith, of this sketch, was reared in Waukesha and Portage Counties, on a farm. At the age of eleven years he began working out by the month, and at the age of twenty began teaching school, in Dane County, and followed that vocation until the spring of 1861. In August following he joined the army as a private in Company E, Eighth Wisconsin Volunteer Infantry, and after serving out the time of that enlistment he re-enlisted and served until the close of the war, being honorably discharged and mustered out at Demopolis, Alabama, in September, 1865. In January, 1863, he was promoted to be First Sergeant. The arena of his military career embraced Tennessee, Kentucky, Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas and Missouri. He participated in the siege and capture of Vicksburg, Banks Red River expedition, second battle of Nashville, siege and capture of Spanish Fort, etc.

After the war he came to Dane County and soon moved to Clark County, homesteading 160 acres of timber land where he now lives. Here he built a log-house 18 x 28 feet and a story and a-half high, and at once began clearing up the land for cultivation. His place was at first many miles in the woods from any neighbor, and there were no roads. Altogether he has cleared here about eighty acres. He now owns eighty acres where he lives, besides 240 acres of timber land in sections 24 and 25 in the township of Loyal. He started out in life with only what money he received when discharged from the army. He has given all his time to farming until within the last three years, which he has devoted more to the ministry. He joined the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in 1874, and in 1887 was licensed to preach. He has held almost all the offices of his township he is a Republican.

January 4, 1863, is the date of his marriage to Augusta M. Miles, of Dane county, who was born in Erie County, Pennsylvania March 16, 1843, a daughter of Samuel J. and Sarah (Burch) Miles, natives respectively of Pennsylvania and New York. They came to Dane County and settled on a farm near Madison, where they still live, each aged sixty-eight years. Mr. And Mrs. Smith have had two children: Harriet A., now the wife of Robert A. Brasier, a farmer in Loyal Township and Allen J., who died when an infant.

SMITH SWARTZWOUT MILES BURCH BRASIER