George W. SMOOT was born in Simpson
Township , Johnson County , Ill., in 1845, and now resides in Burnside
Township, in the same
county. His father, Reed SMOOT, was born in North Carolin ,
and came to Illinois from Missouri about 1838, at the age of
twenty-six
years. He was the son of George SMOOT, a farmer and a native of
Virginia, who
died in Kentucky about 1827, in middle life, leaving a widow and six
children, three sons and three daughters, of whom Reed, the father of
George W., was the
eldest. The widow married again, this union being with Levi T. TAYLOR,
and died
in Johnson County , Ill., near Reynoldsburgh, at the
age of eighty-five years.
The mother of George W. SMOOT was
Eliza (THOMAS)
SMOOT, a daughter of Henry THOMAS, whose wife was before her marriage a
Miss MUNGLE.
Mr. and Mrs. THOMAS were from Weakley County , Tenn. , where
their daughter was born. Grandfather THOMAS was a soldier in the War of
1812,
and went into the army at the age of eighteen years. The paternal
grandparents
of our subject early removed from North Carolina to Tennessee, whence
they removed to Kentucky , living in that
State many years. They removed thence to Missouri ,
living there for a short time, and then came to Illinois . These
pilgrimages were made in the
old-fashioned emigrant style, in a covered wagon drawn sometimes by an
ox and
cow that were yoked together. They came to Illinois with no
cash capital, and their first home was three miles west of Marion,
Williamson County, on wild land. The
parents of George W. SMOOT were married August 12, 1841, the father
being then
twenty- nine and the mother twenty-two years old. They began life on
one
hundred and twenty acres of land purchased from the Government at $1.25
per
acre, and lived thereon the rest of their days.
They
reared a family of five sons and five daughters, and of these
children George W. is the third child and second son in order of birth.
The
others were: Sarah Ann, widow of John O'NEAL, who is now living on her
farm in
Bloomfield Township; Warren O., a very conscientious and pious young
man, who
enlisted when twenty years of age in the Fourteenth Illinois Cavalry,
Company
G, under the command of Capt. Perkins, and was captured on Stoneman's
raid, and
died in Andersonville Prison November 11, 1863; Viola, wife of W. T.
FERN, a farmer , of Bloomfield Township; B. F., a
farmer of Simpson Township; Ulich Z., a farmer of Missouri, recently
deceased;
Mary E., deceased wife of S. F. YANDELL, who died in 1884, at the age
of
twenty-eight; Sarrillo, who died at the age of twenty-two; Martha Jane,
who
died six months later, when nearly twenty-one years old; and L. L., a
farmer
living on the old farm with his mother, and who, during the last three
years,
has been a Baptist clergyman.
George W. SMOOT was
reared on the farm, and secured a
good common-school education. He began teaching school at the age of
twenty-one
years, and continued in this occupation for fifteen successive winters,
of
which six terms were taught in the same school. He
was married when twenty-four
years of age to
Paralee HAILEY, widow of W. R. KELLEY, and a daughter of John
T. and Nancy
(JONES) HAILEY. By her first marriage she had one daughter named
Lizzie, who is
now deceased. Mr. and Mrs. HAILEY removed from Tennessee ,
in which State Mrs. SMOOT was born, and located in Kentucky ,
where they remained some time, removing to Illinois in 1862. Mr. HAILEY died on the
homestead
September 28, 1873,
in the fifty- fifth year of his age. His widow, aged seventy, still
lives,
together with two sons and three daughters.
Mr. and Mrs. SMOOT removed
to New
Burnside in 1873, where they have lived ever since in their cozy little
cottage. Mr. SMOOT was formerly engaged in teaching and clerking up to
1882,
and has since been connected with the fire insurance business, acting
first as
solicitor and then as recorder and district agent. He has been agent
for
various companies, and is without doubt one of the most successful
agents in
his line in this county, he has been Village Treasurer for eight years,
is a
member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and also a
member of the Blue
Lodge in Masonry, of which he is Secretary. Mr. and Mrs.
SMOOT are both
members of the Baptist Church , and he has been
clerk of his church for many years.
transcribed &
contributed by Faye Bowman
Source:
The Biographical Review of Johnson, Massac, Pope and Hardin
Counties
Chicago
Biographical Publishing Co., 1893
pg. 281
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