In the book's own words, not ours, with obvious scanning errors fixed. Families often supplied these stories to the publisher, so check key dates.
From Biographical review of Des Moines County, Iowa (1905)
HON. ELLISON SMITH.
[This passage is too damaged in the scanned book to reproduce. See the original book.]
The father, who was also a native of Yorkshire, was by trade a miller, following that occupation in I-".ngl;nul; but on coming to America he purchased a farm of three hundred acres three miles south of r.burlington, Iowa, and devoted himself to agriculture. Cira])ling with the hard problems of pioneer life and frontier conditions, he cleared away the encumbering forests, free the productive forces of the soil, erected buildings, and established a home for himself and his family. It was here that he resided until the lime of his death, which occurred in 1870, at the age of seventy-five years. He was a member of the Episcopal church, maintaining this connection through life, and while he was always wisely conservative in all things, he was a friend of true ])progress, and attained a gratifying degree of pecuniary prosperity. The mother of Ellison Smith was also a native of England, and she attained to the age of eighty-one years, her death occurring in 1881. She is survived by five children, all of whom are residents of the Middle West.
Mr. Smith obtained his formal education almost wholly in his native country, the only schooling which he received subsequent to his tenth year being that of a six weeks' term in the public schools of Burlington township, Des Moines county. Despite the meagerness of his early advantages, however, he formed a taste for reading, which he always retained, and through habits of reflection and intelligent observation he became possessed of the extensive knowledge and broad views which made him a man of true and universal culture. With the exception of a short period, during which he learned and worked at the brickmaker's trade, he remained with his parents until his twenty-sixth year.
[This passage is too damaged in the scanned book to reproduce. See the original book.]
As printed in Biographical review of Des Moines County, Iowa (1905). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.
The printed record stops around 1905. We trace your line from there down to you, with every source cited.