Making History?
Magnolia’s First Pioneer

By Monica Wooton
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Dr. Henry Smith takes on very large dimensions in the reflections of his loving daughter’s reminiscences and a few available paragraphs of biographers. While Ione Smith Graff’s writings offer a special perspective on Smith, it is just that: a daughter’s memories of a loving and fun childhood fifty years after the fact, and a strong and understandable belief in her father and his abilities. Most sources consider him a “hero” type, quietly striving to make Seattle a better place to live. Few biographers mention the extent or source of his wealth, or his moneymaking impetus. All cast him as a compassionate Seattle pioneer and leader, loving fellow settlers and native Indians equally. Yet, there is little written on his business deals. Ione is the first source found to explain how Smith acquired his acreage through a rather healthy inheritance, and then built an empire in Seattle.

Reflections of a Daughter . . .

“ My father, Dr. Henry Allen Smith was born in Wooster, Ohio; April 11, 1830. He was the tenth of eleven children . . . medium height and build . . . a high forehead, a Roman nose, expressive blue eyes . .. while young, soft wavy black hair which, as I first remember him, had turned quite gray. His third generation grandfather was Baron Nicholas von Schmidt whose son, Copelton, against his parents’ wishes, married the girl of his choice, Katrina, and left with her for America, arriving in Philadelphia in the year 1760. There he eventually acquired large land holding in now what is the heart of that great city.”

Copelton fought in the Revolutionary War. His son Nicholas decided to change the family name to Smith and that became the formal family name in America. Nicholas and his wife, who were Henry A. Smith’s great grandparents, were soon killed by Indians, but their baby son, also named Nicholas, was “miraculously saved.”

The younger Nicholas Smith, Henry’s father and Ione Smith’s grandfather, grew up to be“ a powerful man, physically, mentally, morally” and a preacher in the Baptist religion when he converted to the Disciples of Christ Church. The pastors of these particular congregations were required to support their churches through their own labor and business endeavors.

Nicholas took contracts to dig canals and was very successful. With his earnings, he built a three-story brick church and dwelling, using the third floor as the church. It was built in Wooster, Ohio, in 1837. Henry Smith was seven years old at this time. His father would die at the age of 50, having served in the War of 1812, leaving Henry’s mother, Abigail Teaff Smith, alone with Henry’s youngest sister Ellender.

Ministry of Medicine

“My father entered Allegheny College, Meadville, Pennsylvania with the intention of studying for the ministry but later decided that he could do more good in the world as a physician and therefore took up the study of medicine.” After Allegheny, an internship in Ohio, finishing his professional work at the office of Dr. Charles Roode and later at the University of Pennsylvania, Smith was ready to begin a medical career.5

Ione recounts that as a young man, Smith set out West: “One day in the spring of 1851, he told [his] mother, that he had an opportunity to travel out west . . . as a medical assistant physician.” Smith’s mother responded with “shock and dismay: ‘People die on those trips!’ to which the 22-year-old Smith replied, ‘That’s just why I’m going, to stop that—to keep people from dying.’” He promised to return for Ellender if it was “to his liking.” “Papa’s mother, being a wise woman” decided to accompany him and take Ellender, who had just finished her schooling, on the trip right then. They traveled in a covered wagon with another doctor by the name of Millard.6

Smith, at 22, was probably still somewhat naive about how the West and its cities developed. But, demonstrating great medical sense and unusual common sense, Smith brought cholera medicine with him, knowing that the disease was prevalent on the wagon trains. To his credit, his instincts and humanitarianism saved many lives.

When he left Ohio, he was most likely not dreaming of the bustling commerce and busy steam trains, or the active docks and lucrative worldwide trade which would all emanate fro m the place where he would eventually settle—the marshy southern shores of a place called Magnolia. Medicine was his vocation, agriculture his avocation by admission. And he was headed for “California Gold Country” to utilize those skills and perhaps strike it rich there .7

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