by Don S. Smith

 

Silas Sanford Smith, Jr., was born July 10, 1853, at Parowan, Utah, the oldest son of Silas Sanford and Clarinda Ricks Smith. When he was ten and a half years old, his mother died, leaving four children ranging in age from nine days to ten and a half years.  Not very much of his boyhood is known, only that he clerked in the store and that he wore a pair of trousers that they said he had been melted and poured into.   

As a young man, he served in the MIA superintendency.  On November 3, 1873, he married Betsy Williamson in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Utah.  He traveled from Paragonah to Salt Lake City, a distance of 250 miles by ox team, with Betsy and her mother.  On arriving home again, they built a two-room adobe house as their first home.  They lived in this first home for four or five years and it was here that their first two children were born, Clarinda Ann and Silas Sanford III. This house was used by different families for eighty years and was torn down and a new brick home built in its place.   

Silas and family received a call from the Church Authorities to accompany his uncle, Jesse N. Smith, to colonize Snowflake, Arizona.  There he acquired a piece of land and began to clear and break sod to plant a crop.  He also started to build a new home when he received another call from the Church Authorities to accompany his father on the San Juan Expedition.  So he sold his farm and summer's work, or traded it for a horse.  He had bad luck with the horse.  It got caught in some quicksand and died.  He dragged the horse out of the mire and pulled its shoes off.   

He used to tell that he received a set of used horseshoes for his farm and a summer's work.  On their way back to Utah, their only provisions were a sack of wheat and a keg of molasses.  They would grind the wheat in the coffee mill to make cereal and cook it and put molasses over it.   

They met a couple who had used the last of their provisions, so Silas and Betsy divided their wheat and molasses with them and they all went on rejoicing.  They arrived back in Utah just in time to go with the company on one of the greatest tasks ever undertaken in the West, that of building a road through the Hole-in-the-Rock, down the side of the cliffs down to the Colorado River, building a ferry, and crossing the river and up the other side of the river, and home to the San Juan country.   

Here, they received another call to accompany his father into Southern Colorado into the San Luis Valley. It was here that one of Silas' sisters said they beat the coyotes out of their haunts.  Here, their other four children were born, and their two older ones passed away.   

Silas served in the bishopric of the Manassa Ward for several years , was ward clerk for eight years , and Manassa Postmaster for eight years.   He was Assistant Postmaster for many years. In 1900 he was called on a two-year mission in what was then the Southern States Mission, laboring in Illinois and Ohio.   

Going through these hardships and losing their two older children proved to be more than Betsy could stand.  Her health broke and, on the advice of the doctor, they moved to a lower altitude.  In January, 1906, they arrived in Rexburg, Idaho, to make their home.  They lived in a rented house for three months and this was the only rented house they ever lived in.   

In their new home, Silas soon became acquainted and was elected City Councilman for two terms.  He served a term as City Clerk and Police Judge.  He was also United States Commissioner for the District of Idaho.  Silas was a very efficient auditor and was often called upon to help audit city and county books.