My Genealogy Hound

Joseph P. Smelser is classed among the worthy and leading tillers of the soil of Greene County, of which he is a native, having been born in 1858. He was a son of John W. and Nancy (Clark) Smelser, who were born on Kentucky soil and in Tennessee, respectively. They came to Greene County, Ark., on the 6th of May, 1836, and located in Cache Township, where the paternal grandfather, Abraham Smelser, settled on a tract of wild land and opened up 100 acres. He and wife reared a large family of children, and both died of smallpox in 1863. John W. Smelser was their oldest child, and attained his majority in this section of the country. In 1864 he joined Price in his raid through Missouri, but since the war has given his attention to farming and merchandising at Crowley, he and wife being members of the Methodist Episcopal Church at that place. To them were born seven children, three of whom are deceased. Joseph P. Smelser is their fifth child and grew to manhood in Cache Township, receiving a very limited education in his youth. At the age of twenty years he began earning his own living, and was married to Miss Margaret Adams, residing on the old home place for eight years. He then came to his present location, which was then a tract of wild land, and now has fifty acres under cultivation, improved with good buildings, etc. Although not active in politics, he votes the Democratic ticket, and he and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. They are the parents of two children: John William and Nancy Ann Delvada, who died at the age of seven years, after a brief illness of five days.