Sacramento County
Biographies
SARGENT
PRENTIS SMITH
S. PRENTIS SMITH, vice-president of the National Bank of D. O. Mills, was born in the city of St. Louis in 1841, the son of Saul Smith, the distinguished actor, author and scholar, who died in 1869. The Smith family are eminently American; the father is a native of New York State, and grandfather Smith, a New Englander, took part in the Revolutionary War, and was wounded at the battle of Bunker Hill. On the maternal side the family is almost equally well known, the mother, Elizabeth Pugstey, was a native of Westchester County, New York, and a member of the family of that name, who for generations have had their home on the banks of the far-famed Hudson River. Brought up and educated in his native city, in early life he witnessed the dire sectional feelings and animosity developed by the Civil War. His experience as a financier and banker has been both comprehensive and varied, first as a bank clerk, and later on as cashier in the United States Sub-treasury in his native city, and as a private banker in Illinois; in these and other enterprises he has gained enviable reputation as a financier prior to his coming to San Francisco in 1875. He there accepted the position of executive secretary and confidential factotum to D. O. Mills, and, when in 1885 Mills withdrew his San Francisco office to the city of New York, Mr. Smith was invited to come to Sacramento, and, in conjunction with Cashier Miller, assume the management of the Mills bank, having been appointed to its vice-presidency. Mr. Smith was married in the city of St. Louis, in 1865, to Miss Alice Vaile, who is a scion of an old French family, and a worthy representative of her ancestry. They are much respected in Sacramento, and move in the best circles of society.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of
Sacramento County, California. Page 601. Lewis
Publishing Company. 1890.
© 2007 Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.