Palo Alto. He has long been a member of the Pioneer Lawmakers' Association of Iowa, and in 1898 read before the Association a valuable historical article on the “Iowa Frontier During the War of the Rebellion.” In 1894 he was appointed by the Governor a member of the State Commission to superintend the erection of a monument to the memory of the victims of the Spirit Lake massacre and the Relief Expedition under Major Williams. To Mr. Smith was assigned the duty of grading the ground, superintending the construction of the monument and reinterring the remains of the victims of the massacre. Mr. Smith is the author of a very complete “History of Dickinson County” which is a valuable contribution to the historical record of northwestern Iowa.
WALTER I. SMITH is a native of Council Bluffs, where he was born July 10, 1862. He received a public school education, taught school and studied law in the office of D. B. Dailey. In December, 1882, he was admitted to the bar. He was elected on the Republican ticket in 1890 judge of the Fifteenth Judicial District, which position he held by reëlections until September, 1900, when he resigned, having been nominated by the Republicans of the Ninth Congressional District for Representative in Congress to fill a vacancy. He was elected, serving in the Fifty-sixth Congress, was reëlected to the Fifty-seventh, where he was a member of the special committee to investigate “hazing” at the West Point Military Academy. Mr. Smith was a member of the committee on banking and currency, and also on elections. He was reëlected to the Fifty-eighth Congress; and in 1902 presided over the Republican State Convention at Des Moines where he made the opening address which sounded the keynote of the campaign.
WILLIAM R. SMITH was born in Ocean County, New Jersey, December 30, 1828. His boyhood days were spent on a farm and in the winter he attended the public school. In 1845 the family removed to Michigan where the son taught several winters. He had decided to study medicine and when about twenty-one went to New York City and attended lectures. In 1866 he removed to Iowa, locating in the frontier town of Sioux City. Northwestern Iowa, Dakota and northern Nebraska were at that time almost entirely unsettled. Sioux City was but a little village remote from railroad and reached only by a semi-weekly stage line from Dubuque. In the spring of 1861, when the Sioux Indians were threatening the frontier settlements of Iowa, Minnesota, Dakota and Nebraska military companies were organized for protection and Dr. Smith was chosen a lieutenant in one consisting of mounted riflemen, in which he served until relieved by the arrival of United States troops. He was appointed Government surgeon and was sent on a sanitary tour of inspection among the Iowa regiments serving in the Vicksburg campaign. In 1863 he was appointed
