Oscar S. Smith was born in the town of Avoca (then in- 

 cluded in Bath), March 31, 1816. 



His paternal grandfather, Joseph Smith, was a native of 

 Dutchess Co., N. Y., and settled with his family in Bradford 

 Co., Pa., as one of the pioneers of that county, where he died 

 at an advanced age. His father, Henry Smith, was about ten 

 years old when the family settled in Pennsylvania ; was mar- 

 ried to Anna Spalding, of Sheshequin, Bradford Co., Pa., and 

 immediately thereafter came to Steuben County, settling in 

 the then town of Bath, in 1814, purchased a tract of land, built 

 a saw-mill, and began clearing his land and manufacturing 

 lumber. 



He spent the remainder of his life on this farm, quietly 

 following agricultural pursuits ; was a man of correct habits, 

 strict integrity of purpose, and unobtrusive in all his ways. 

 He died about the close of the late Kebellion at the age of 

 eighty, having lived in this county to see the forest give place 

 to cultivated fields, and schools, churches, and public buildings 

 take the place of the pioneer's rudely constructed log buildings. 



The wife and mother died at the age of fifty-seven, about 

 the year 1850. She was a daughter of Maj. William Spald- 

 ing, and granddaughter of Gen. Spalding, of Eevolutionary 



fame. 



Their children are Oscar S. ; Mrs. S. W. Park, of Athens, 

 Pa. ; Maria; Eeuben O., of Clean, Cattaraugus Co. ; Erastus 

 H., of Towanda, Pa. (deceased) ; Henry B., of Lyndon, Osage 

 Co., Kan. ; and Mrs. Franklin J. Marshal, of Wheeler, this 

 county. Mr. Smith received his education from books in the 

 common schools of his early days, which although of a limited 

 amount formed a taste for reading and study, which he has 

 cultivated during his life. His minority was spent at home, 

 engaged with his father in farm and lumber business. At 

 the age of twenty he began business for himself, and unassisted 



pecuniarily purchased one hundred acres of timbered land, 

 upon which he labored for some eleven years, preparing the 

 land for farming. 



In 1849, January 31, he married Elvira F., daughter of 

 Capt. Jabez Fish, of Sheshequin, Bradford Co., Pa. She was 

 born in 1824. 



In the year 1850 he settled in the village of Avoca, and 

 opened a general merchandise store, which although of small 

 beginning, he has gradually increased as the growing interests 

 of the vicinity demanded, and continues at the present time. 

 During the twenty-nine years he has been in business as a 

 merchant in Avoca he has had associated with him at differ- 

 ent times other men, with firm-names of ''Smith & Peek," 

 and " Smith & Barney ;" the latter firm is now in business. 



Mr. Smith cast his first vote for President of the United 

 States for Martin Van Buren as a Democrat. Upon the 

 formation of the Kepublican party he took an active part, and 

 was a delegate in the county convention upon the organization 

 of that party here. He was a delegate to the State Conven- 

 tion in support of Abraham Lincoln for President. He was 

 appointed postmaster at Avoca, first under the administration 

 of President Pierce, second of Abraham Lincoln, and third, 

 in the spring of 1868, of Gen. U. S. Grant, which office he now 

 holds, making in all some twelve years he has been postmaster. 



Mr. Smith is a man of plain, unassuming ways, possessed 

 of that native talent and sound sense, sharpened by contact 

 with business through a series of years, not uncommon with 

 men whose early life was regulated somewhat by the necessity 

 of the times, and the privations which foster self-reliance. 

 Promptness, integrity, and justice in his business are his 

 known characteristics. 



His children are O. Park, H. Wilmot, L. Dana, C. Howard, 

 and R. O. Smith. 



