A. P. AND SIDNEY SMITH

A. P. AND SIDNEY SMITH are the sons of Anthony Smith, a farmer of Canajoharie, Montgomery County, New York. Their mother was of an old Connecticut family remarkable of its longevity, their maternal grandmother attaining the age of ninety-seven years, and her sister, Mrs. King, of Hartford, Connecticut, lived to be 103 years old. When Sidney, the elder brother, was a child, the family removed from Canajoharie to Rome, New York, and here on the 6^th of January, 1812, A. P. Smith was born. In 1816 the family removed across the State line into Vermont, settling at Whiting, opposite Fort Ticonderoga. At that time A. P. Smith was about four years old, but Sidney, the elder, a lad of thirteen or fourteen, was already engaged in a country store, and when eighteen he went to Troy, New York, and entered the store of Daniel Marvin, and he being somewhat of an invalid, very soon became the buyer for the firm, making trips to New York city for that purpose; he remained in this responsible position until 1827, when he went to New York and engaged in the business firm of Henry Sheldon & Co. In 1830, in connection with Daniel Peck, who was a fellow-clerk, established the dry-goods house of Smith, Peck & Co., of Troy, which later on became Smith, Redfield & Co. In 1835, A. P. Smith entered the store as a clerk, but his early training and natural bent of mind toward horticultural and agricultural pursuits, induced him in a few years to withdraw, and he engaged in the experiment of silk-worm culture, he being among the first to open a “cocoonery,” and to engage in raising the Morus Multicaulis, in 1844. During the wonderful excitement consequent upon the discovery of gold in California, Mr. A. P. Smith became one of the party of thirty who purchased the barge William Ivy and came to California via Cape Horn; as stated, the original ownership of the vessel and cargo was vested in about thirty persons, but through gambling, buying, selling and trading, during the long voyage, by the time they arrived in San Francisco in July there were a half dozen who owned both. Arriving at Sacramento, Mr. Smith at once bought of Captain Sutter fifty acres of land on the American River, paying for it $100 per acre, and the firm of Smith, Baker & Barber, nurserymen and gardeners, was established. A full description of the land titles in 1849 having already appeared in this volume, it is unnecessary to repeat them here, or go into detail in regard to the floods which again and again destroyed the labor of many months, But, to go back to the other brother whom we left in the dry-goods store at Troy, where he remained until 1844, in 1850 he went to the old farm in Vermont, and remained there until 1853, when his brother having returned from California on a visit, he was induced to join him and come to Sacramento in the fall of the year. They opened a store on J street where Dr. Simmons’s office now is, Sidney attending to that part of the business, while A. P. gave his attention to the gardens, which grew and, “joy forever.” No expense was spared in its adornment; peaches, pears and grapes from the East vied with the fruits and flowers of the tropics, and grew side by side. The property advanced in value rapidly and in 1855 one of the partners of the house of Booth & Co. offered $75,000 for it, but was refused, and it was estimated to be worth fully $100,000. But alas, for human expectation! How true it is that “best laid plans of mice and man gang aft agley!” The floods of 1861, followed by the still greater floods of 1862, caused the levee, which had built along the bank of the American River, to burst above the gardens and then the labor of years, the beautiful Smith’s Gardens, the popular pleasure resort of Sacramento, were swept away. In the meantime Sidney had returned home in 1856, on a visit, and in 1858 his wife, Almira Smith (nee Townsend) daughter of Henry Townsend, a merchant and mill man of Troy, New York, whom he had married in 1838, joined him and here they made their home, and here their only daughter, wife of Major Hubbard, died. Sidney Smith still survives; the younger brother, A. P. Smith, died in 18__. At this writing the health of Sidney Smith, considering his eighty-six years, is quite remarkable.

Transcribed by Karen Pratt.

Davis, Hon. Win. J., An Illustrated History of Sacramento County, California. Page 474-475. Lewis Publishing Company. 1890.