Smith, William and Arvilla

Arvilla Smith, wife of Wm. Smith
Oakwood Cemetery
(Source:  Photo by Jacqueline Klapproth Nelson.  Copyright October 2011)



William Smith
Oakwood Cemetery
(Source:  Photo by Jacqueline Klapproth Nelson.  Copyright Octgober 2011)

William Smith
William Smith, a farmer in Section 14, was born in Scotland in 1802.  He came to America in 1834.  In the fall of that year he went to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and in the spring of 1835 he purchased 160 acres of land where the City of Milwaukee now stands.  In the fall of 1836, Mr. Smith burned a kiln of lime of 300 barrels, in what was probably the first lime kiln built in Wisconsin.  He sold his land in Milwaukee in 1836, and repurchased it in 1838.  In 1836, he came to Kenosha County, and at the land sale the following spring, he purchased 320 acres in what is now Somers Township, and began cultivating it, and has since remained on it.  In 1860 he was awarded the second prize for the best improved farm in Wisconsin, by the State Agricultural Society.  Mr. Smith married in Burlington, Wisconsin in 1842, Miss Arvilla Dyer, a native of Herkimer Co., New York, who died some years ago, leaving no children.  Mr. Smith is the owner at present of 155 acres of land.  Mr. Smith, some years, ago, while ordering from his premises two young men who were shooting pigeons, on a Sunday morning, was fired upon by one of them, shooting his right arm entirely off, from which Mr. Smith has since suffered very much, being quite old at the time of the occurrence.
(Source:  The History of Racine and Kenosha Counties, Wisconsin, Western Historical Company, 1879).