David Smith

Historical Encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Peoria County, 1902
Transcribed by John Melton!

SMITH, DAVID; born in McLean County, Illinois, December 31, 1836, was educated at the Illinois Wesleyan University at Bloomington, and was acting as a Trustee of that institution when he came to Peoria in October, 1887, as manager of the Central Illinois Agency of the New York Life Insurance Company. He was a Trustee of the Methodist Church at Hudson, of which he has been a member since his early boyhood . At Hudson he was Trustee of the school fund for five years. His parents were John and Anna (Havens) Smith, early settlers in McLean County. They were married, March 30, 1831, and had six children: Dr. Leo Smith of Bloomington; Irena (Smith) Lewis and Christina (Smith) Gray, both of Prescott, Wisconsin; Jesse and David, twins; and Isaac, who died May 19, 1869, at the age of twenty-six years. Two others, John and Mary, died in childhood. Jessie resides at Oakland, California. The father, John Smith, was born in Randolph County, North Carolina, December 11, 1804, and died at Hudson, Illinois, April 2, 1882. The mother, Anna (Havens) Smith, was born at Newark, Ohio, April 13, 1808, and died at Prescott, Wisconsin, March 24, 1896. All the deceased members of this family are buried in the cemetery at Hudson, Illinois. Mr. Smith is a Republican. He was married in Peoria, July 18, 1889, to Mary Jennett Russell. The Russell family history in this country begins with Rev. John Russell, who came from England in 1630, settling in Cambridge, Massachusetts; his son John, born in England in 1627, graduated from Harvard College in 1643, and settled in Branford, Connecticut, where he died in 1731, after an honorable career of forty-four years as a minister. He participated with nine other ministers in the historic founding of Yale College. A monument on the “Town Green” at Branford, Connecticut, erected in 1900, by the Colonial Dames of America, bears the following inscription: “In the house of Rev. Samuel Russell, once standing near this spot, was held, in 1700, the meeting of ministers of the Colony of Connecticut, when they gave books for the founding of the College school which now bears the name of Yale University.” Col. John Russell, the son of Rev. Samuel, was born January 24, 1686, and graduated from Yale College in 1704; in 1707 he was married, and died in 1757. John Russell, the son of Colonel John, was born September 13, 1710, married Mary Barker in 1732, and their second son, John Russell, was born October 11, 1736. He married Mary Lindsley in 1762. Their eldest son, Buel Russell, was born in 1762, and married Miss Barker. He died in Monticello, New York, in 1814. His son, William Russell, of the eighth generation, was born at Branford, Connecticut, September 15, 1797. He came to Peoria in 1835, buying a farm on the West Bluff, a mile and a quarter west of the Court House. He returned to Connecticut to spend two years, and then returned to Peoria, and spent the rest of his life. He married Susan Black, September 15, 1840, by whom he had two children: John W. and M. Jennett. William Russell died March 18, 1864, leaving a large and valuable estate. John W. Russell has been twice married, by his second marriage he had four children. George Major Russell, the only living son, is the Cashier of the National Bank of Garden Grove, Iowa.

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