by Charles W. Bowman

Biographies

   Burrell D. Smith was born in Sheffield, Lorain Co., Ohio, in 1844. He worked on a farm until he was twenty years of age, excepting such times as he attended school at Oberlin. He attended both the preparatory and collegiate departments. Mr. S. left college in 1865, and started for Fort Union, New Mexico, with a wagon train across the plains, occupying two months in the journey. The train consisted of not less than 500 wagons. On this trip they were attacked twice by the Indians. The first time while "nooning". The Indians killed and scalped two of the men. The second attack was after the train had passed Fort Dodge. They had warning that the Indians were near, and had time to corral their wagons, enabling them to hold the savages at bay, although they made a desperate charge upon the train, accompanying it with their usual war-whoop. They were unmolested the remainder of the distance. After a short delay in New Mexico, Mr. Smith returned east as far as Fort Lyon, where he remained two months before proceeding to Kansas City by wagon train. Late in the fall of 1865, he started again for Fort Union with a train of wagons loaded with Government corn. But the freight was "pressed" by the officer in command and left at Fort Aubrey, Kan. From this point Mr. Smith went to Fort Lyon, where he was engaged in supplying the fort with wood under contract. In the spring of 1866, he returned to Fort Aubrey, where he clerked in a sutler's store, until the goods were removed, June 1, of the same year, to near Fort Lyon reservation, where he clerked for a time. Here he was at one time placed in a trying position. Having been left alone in charge of the stock, suddenly 200 Indians appeared on their way to Fort Lyon, which they intended to attack. The store was two and a half miles from the Fort, and all communication was cut off, and Mr. Smith was at the mercy of the red-skins. Finally he was reinforced by four well armed men. On their return the savages passed them unharmed. After clerking here for two months, he entered the service of Capt. Craig, on the Huerfano Creek, for a few weeks, in the capacity of a clerk. In the fall of 1866, he returned to Fort Lyon and kept the mail and stage station during the following winter and spring. Then in company with Messrs. Reynolds and Buttles, he bought the sutler's stock of Mr. Lyman Fields and removed the goods to New Fort Lyon. They were the first storekeepers at this point. At this time the Government was employing 400 men in building the fort, and had stationed there 300 soldiers. After continuing in the business for a few months, the company sold out their stock to Thatcher Bros., and Mr. Smith left mercantile life. Soon after this, he formed a partnership with J.A. Hobson, and entered the cattle business, having taken up a ranch on the half-breed reservation, fifty miles west of Fort Lyon. In the spring of 1868, he bought out his partner and returned to Ohio. On his return to Colorado, accompanied by his brother, Perry Smith, he bought eighty-five head of cattle in Southern Iowa and brought them to Bent County. He remained on the ranch he first took up until 1869, when the Government made a survey of the reservation and gave it to the Indians. He then moved a mile and a half up the Arkansas River and took up another ranch, where he remained until 1879, engaged in cattle-raising, which business he is now pursuing, and then removed to West Las Animas, his present residence. In the fall of 1867, Mr. Smith had an unusual experience with a bunch of seventy-five antelope. He saw them drinking at the foot of a steep embankment partially surrounded by water. He alighted from his horse and rushed in among them and killed five with a knife, and captured one alive. He was not absent from his home more than fifteen minutes. In the fall of 1870, he returned to Ohio, and in the following spring was married to Miss Amelia Reynolds, of Monroe, Mich., who was born August 1, 1849, and formerly lived in Southern Amherst, Lorain Co., Ohio. In 1869, he pre-empted 160 acres and bought 160 more, and in 1870 took a homestead north of the Arkansas River, twenty miles west of West Las Animas. Mr. Smith has four children – Maud B., born January 12, 1872; Sherlock, born March 16, 1873, died June 29, 1873; Cora S, born July 21, 1874; Nellie R., born June 22, 1876; Claude D., born August 22, 1879. Mr. Smith was foreman of the first grand jury ever convened in Bent County, in the fall of 1872, Judge Hallet presiding at court.