HISTORY OF KANE COUNTY.
905
dier, Mr. Smith is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. He was married, June 5, 1867, to Miss Henrietta Richmond, daughter of Moses C. and Susan H. (Garfleld) Richmond, and their union has been blessed by the birth of three children-two girls and one boy. One daughter is now deceased.
JAMES R. SMITH, retired merchant, Dundee, Ill., born in Dundee, July 4, 1839, son of John M. and Mary (Rayner) Smith, was educated in the local schools and trained to mercantile pursuits. In 1858 he opened a business establishment in his own name and was in trade in Dundee for about twenty years. Since his retirement from active business he has given much attention to real-estate and other interests in Kane County. He has been a member of the Kane County Board of Supervisors continuously since 1883, and at the present time (1903) is serving as its President, having filled that position since 1898. He has also been President of the Board of Trustees of Dundee, and has filled other important local positions. In Masonry he is prominent, being a member of the Dundee Lodge, No. 190.
ORAMEL H. SMITH (deceased), contractor and merchant, Carpentersville, III., was born March 31, 1848, at Cabot, Vt, and came to Kane County, Ill., in 1874, where he remained until his death, March 20, 1903. Descended from poor and hard-working parents, his boyhood was one of few pleasures and much hard work. Leaving home at the age of thirteen years, he drifted westward, and, after two or three years spent in working on farms in New York, came to Illinois, where, after teaching school for a time, he learned the carpenter's trade, and became, a contractor and builder. In 1878, in company with J. A. Carpenter, he engaged in the lumber and coal business at, Carpentersville, which he followed until his death. Successful in all his undertakings, the legacy of material things left to his family was not large, his entire life having been spent for others; and this, continued unfalteringly through years of intense bodily suffering such as few men would have patiently endured, stamped him as a man of high character and genuine nobility.
ORVILLE A. SMITH, merchant, Geneva, Ill., born in Orange County, N. Y., August 15, 1845, reared and educated in the Empire State, and came west in 1874; located in Kane County in 1876 and conducted a farm until 1889, when he bought the furniture and undertaking business of S. N. Cooper, to which he added a stock of hardware in 1900, and has since been engaged in this business. He was married in 1881 to Miss Mary McFarland, of St. Charles, and their children are: Helen (who died in infancy) and A. Warren, who is now (1903) a student at Lewis Institute, Chicago.
P. Y. SMITH, lawyer, Aurora, Ill., was born on a farm in Batavia Township, Kane County, March 20, 1873, son of George F. and Mary (Loverin) Smith. The family removed to Aurora in 1882, and Mr. Smith secured his early education in the schools of that city, graduating from the West Aurora High School in 1891, and finishing his academic studies at the University of Wisconsin. After reading law under the pre-ceptorship of Newell F. Nichols, of Aurora, and taking a course in the Chicago College of Law, he was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of Illinois in February, 1897. Shortly after this he became a member of the law firm of Nichols & Sears, which then became Nichols, Sears & Smith. Since the death of Mr. Nichols in 1899, the firm has continued as Sears & Smith, with a recognized standing as one of the leading law firms of Aurora. Mr. Smith was married in 1898 to Miss Alice M. Allen, daughter of Edward C. Allen, and granddaughter of Edward R. Allen, one of the old pioneer settlers of Aurora, and a very prominent citizen in his day.
WILLIAM J. SMITH, merchant, Batavia, Ill., born in Chowan County, N. C., July 21, 1831; learned the shoemaker's and carpenter's trades in his boyhood, and came to Batavia, Ill., in 1882, where he became senior member of the pioneer furniture and undertaking firm of Smith & Crane. He was married in 1857 to Miss Laura A. Doing, of Westville, Ind.
WILLIAM R. SMITH, merchant, Geneva, Ill., was born in Norfolk, Conn., Jan. 25, 1832, son of Rufus and Hannah (Lucas) Smith and grandson of Corkins Smith, a veteran of the Revolutionary War. The first eight years of his life were spent in Connecticut, when the family removed to New York, and his education was received chiefly in the public schools of that State. He mastered the jeweler's trade, which
