George C. Smith

As printed in 1911

GEORGE CRAMPTON SMITH.

No business man in Clinton, Iowa, is regarded with higher favor than George Crampton Smith, who, while looking to his own interests, does not neglect to discharge his duties in fostering the upbuilding of the community in general, having, through a long life of strenuous and commendable endeavor, done as much if not more than any other man for the good of the city of Clinton, and as a result of his public-spirit, his integrity, industry and kindness he is held in highest esteem by all classes and is deserving of conspicuous mention on the pages of history, if for no other reason than because of his development of the Clinton Paper Company, one of the strongest and most prosperous houses of the kind in Iowa.

Mr. Smith was born in Lincolnshire, England, March 5, 1831, the son of William C. and IIary Smith. The father was a farmer in England and he came to America in 1852 and settled eight miles west of Clinton, Iowa, on eighty acres of land; here he established a very comfortable home and continued farming here until his death in 1895. Politically, he was a Republican and in religious matters an Episcopalian. He and Mary Smith were married in England in 1829. Her death occurred at an advanced age in

George C. Smith was educated in England and accompanied his parents to America in an old sailing-vessel, the \ osage requiring twenty-eight days. He purchased eighty acres alongside that of his father, but he never fanned this land. He followed stationary engineering for a period of forty years and was an expert in this line of endeavor. He is now nearly eighty years of age. but is still visiting the offices of the Clinton Paper Company, of which he is president and treasurer and with which he has been connected since about 1864. They are manufacturers and jobbers of.straw, rag and red express paper. It is to him that the city of Clinton owes its reputation for having one of the most successful and steadily operated paper mills in the United States.

Knowing something of the manufacture of paper and recognizing a great future for the Mississippi valley. Mr. Smith organized a company and erected a small paper mill on the site now occupied by the Clinton Paper Company mills at Nineteenth avenue and Fifth street. This company, with somewhere between ten and twenty stockholders, was incorporated in 1864, but the stockholders gradually\' dropped out until this company is what might be called an incorporated private institution, with George C. Smith as president and treasurer: Y. C. Smith, \-ice-president, and William M. Smith, secretary and manager, the latter gentleman having been the active daily director of this company's destiny for several years past. These mills have been rebuilt by the Smiths and newly equipped until the plant of today is one of the model paper manufacturing institutions of the country having a capacity of twenty thousand pounds daily and running to its full capacity night and day the year round. Probably no other paper mill in the United States runs so steadily, and it is equipped with the best of modern machinery, supplied with the best of raw materials — including pure water from its own artesian well — and operated by expert paper makers. The product is naturally of so high a class that the Clinton Paper Company experiences no trouble in placing it on the market, so that the mills are kept very busy to supply the demand. A few years ago, in addition to their immense warehouses at the mills, this company opened an up-town warehouse and in 1909 the company built one of the handsomest two-story and basement wholesale structures in the city, on Sixth avenue. It has a total floor space of twenty-one thousand square feet, and this is completely stocked with wrapping paper, bags, woodenware, galvanized ironware, butchers' supplies, specialties and cordage. Six men travel out of this house, covering Iowa and Illinois, in which states a very extensive trade is carried on. and this house is universally recognized as one of the largest and strongest houses financially in the state. Mail orders alone come to this firm rapidly enough to keep the mills busy to their full capacity all the time, and carload shipments go from them to all the principal cities of the western half of the United States, including Chicago, St. Louis. Kansas City, Minneapolis, Omaha, St. Joseph and many others. The Clinton Paper Company supplies by contract all the plants of Swift & Company and the Cudahy Packing Company west of Chicago and many of the smaller packers in the same territory, the Swift and Cudahy people alone requiring some two thousand tons of rag ham-wrapping paper annually. It is a noticeable fact that the trade papers pay many compliments to the solid, progressive and yet modest nature of the Clinton Paper Company's management.

During the past fifteen years, the period during which this company's jobbing business proper has been in operation, it has been systematically meeting the strongest competition from Chicago and all other competing points, and each year has grown stronger with the local and general trade, until today there is no house in the west more popular. It is probable that the people of Clinton do not fully appreciate this large and rapidly growing institution.

George C. Smith was married in 1862 to Cecelia Hosford, of Clinton, and her death occurred in 1864. In 1867 he was married to Sarah Carll, of Waterloo, where her fanu'ly have long been prominent. Seven children graced this union, six of whom are living, namely: Herbert is superintendent of the mills at Clinton: (georgia A. is the wife of F. Langford, of South America; Verne is superintendent of the local paper mills; Artemus lives in California: Lulu is the wife of O. E. Hill, of Clinton; William is secretary of the Clinton Paper Company. These children received excellent education ankl were gi\"en ex'cry chance.

George C. Smith is a Congregationalist and a member of the Independent Order of Odd P'fellows. He is a sociable gentleman and is held in the highest regard by all who know him. His achievements represent the results of honest endeavor along lines where mature judgment has opened the way. He possesses a weight of character, a native sagacity, a discriminating judgment and a fidelity of purpose that command the respect of all with whom he has been associated. He takes first rank among the prominent men of this locality and was long a leader in financial, business, education, social and civic affairs.

As printed in Wolfe's history of Clinton County, Iowa (1911). See the original pages. Wording is the original; obvious scanning errors have been corrected, and a few may remain.