Name of father Ira G. Smith
MARRIAGE - Hilah Kimsey
1850 OR TERR CENSUS - Absalom Smith, age 44, occupation farmer, b. Kentucky, is enumerated with Rylie [Hylie], age 40, b. Tennessee, along with Henry, age 14, b. Missouri, James, age 12, b. Missouri, Nancy J., age 8, b. Missouri, Thomas, age 5, b. Missouri, and Emily, age 1, b. Oregon Territory.

BIOGRAPHICAL
History of Smithfield, Polk County, by Hardin Smith
(Source - Historically Speaking, Vol. VI, Polk County, Oregon, Historical Society, August 1884, pg 28)
“Smithfield was named for my grandfather, Absalom Smith, who was born in northeastern Kentucky in 1805 in the same area where Abraham Lincoln was born (Lincoln was born in 1809). He was the son of Ira and Susan (Means) Smith.
Absalom Smith with his family crossed the plains in 1846 and took out a Donation Land Claim near what is now Smithfield, Polk Co., Oregon. His wife was Hilah (Kimsey) Smith, daughter of James Kimsey, Jr. and Hannah (McCracken) Kimsey. Four of their children were born in Howard Co., MO. Their names were Henry, born 1836; James, born 1838; Nancy Jane, born 1942 and Thomas J., born 1845. Two of the Smith children were born in Oregon at Smithfield. They are Emily, born 1849 and Samuel Thurston (my father) born Oct. 12, 1851.
Absalom Smith had three brothers and one sister who came west in 1847. Their names were Perry, George and Doctor (his given name). Absalom [sic- Doc] was wagon master of the train that came west in 1847, but in southwest Wyoming, he fell ill with what they called camp fever and died on the west side of the river. He was buried in the middle of the road and his grave was covered with the ashes from the campfire so he Indians and animals wouldn’t dig his body up.
Absalom’s brother, George, had the DLC just south of McCoy, Oregon. Perry had a land claim just south of what used to be called Polk Station. Absalom’s sister, Hannah, had a land claim just west of Perry Smith’s land claim. She was married to Jessie Townsend who died on the Oregon Trail someplace. Her daughter, Martha, was the wife of W.C. Brown of early Dallas.
Absalom Smith’s son, Henry, died from injuries received from an accident on the Smith DLC in 1854. James Smith married Hodac Riggs’ [sic - James Berry Riggs daugher, Silbey] daughter at Salt Creek, who died in 1875. Nancy Jane married Goldman Hubbard in 1858. They had 15 children and all but two were born on the Absalom Smith DLC. Thomas J. Smith, another son of Absalom, migrated to Washington in 1866 and settled near what is now Colfax, and later was a Representative and a Senator (the first ones in Whitman Co.). He was a member of the legislature when Washington was admitted in 1880.
Absalom’s other daughter, Emily Frances Smith, married Jefferson Byerly. They raised six children and lived part of their lives in Burns and Newport. Samuel Thurston Smith (my father) migrated to southeastern Washington in about 1873 and homesteaded along side of his brother Tom. He came back to Smithfield in 1889 and traded his homestead in Washington for his sister’s part of the Absalom Smith’s DLC.
Samuel Thurston later married Rosetta Ann Smith, daughter of George C. Smith of Rickreall in 1897. Nine children were born of this couple, four boys and five girls. One of their sons died when he was very young. The names of the children of Samuel and Rosetta Ann were Norma, Elsie, Perry, Harold, Hardin, Kenneth, Margaret, Esta and Avalyn.