Biography

Junius A. Smith was the son of Rev. Lucius Smith who married Frances Miller and William Henry Seward. Junius was married to Martha E. Hall, daughter of Ezekiel and Elizabeth (nee Peckham) Hall, in 1836. They had 10 children together. He worked as a "clerk in the land office" and as a "representative of the Farmers' Loan and Trust Co." the successor of the Holland Land Co. 

In the Seward Family Collection, he is mentioned by Benjamin J. Seward who snidely comments on Smith's arrival on June 21, 1838: "Smith’s marriage brings another partner into the concern & diminishes the Clerk – we gain little help by it. He expects (I learn) to visit Auburn ere long – my present impression is that it will be well to procure someone in his stead & while he is there, to write him not to return." Benjamin Seward also writes to William Henry Seward that, "Smith attended this convention, got tipsy & I took this occasion to tell him that I supposed he would naturally wish to go home to see his parents, (& he had leave at any time agreeable to himself) he & that he had better resign & tell his friends that he did not intend to return - we did not want him - we wanted a surveyer, & this I did because of his un[i]versal idle- ness & worthlessness. He begs off, but I think he must go. He will doubtless stay till you come," in his letter on July 2, 1838. 

She was born in Le Roy, N.Y., and attended the Troy Seminary from 1832 until 1834, where she excelled in vocal music. Smith and Hall had 10 children together. Smith died in '64, and in 1895, Martha's address was in Ridgewood, N.J.