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Sailing from Ohio to Michigan 1862

2023.50.35

In 1870 Ellen Isabel Upham was married to Charles T. Smith who had been a sailor with her father, Captain J. N. Upham, on Lake Erie before enlisting in Company E., 60th Ohio Infantry Regiment of the Union Army. After he received his honorable discharge Smith Joined Captain Upham at Saugatuck. He also served many years on Captain Britain's barges as marine engineer and on the boats of the Rogers & Bird Co. Ellen and Charles Smith had six children. In 1879 the partnership of Upham & Smith was involved in a trade with the Wallin family which had run a tannery in Dingleville or Wallinville on Goshorn Creek. Wallin received an interest in a tug and several scows owned by Upham & Smith in exchange for the large home which the Wallins had built near the mill. The Smith family moved into the old Wallin home and lived there until 1925. Ellen Smith died in 1930. The Wallin/Smith home still stands at 6473 135th Avenue, just north of the Clearbrook Golf Course club house on the west side of the road.

SDHS NL InsertsNauticalFamily History

Winthers, Sally

Digital data in CatalogIt

Smith, Ellen Isabel (Upham) 1849-1929Upham, James Nelson 1826-1914Smith, Charles Thompson 1846-1892

This information was OCR text scanned from SDHS newsletter supplements. A binder of original paper copies is catalog item 2023.50.01

[the 2nd column of SDHS newsletter insert page 74 includes this text and three low-resolution images of a sailing ship and two autograph book pages] AN OLD AUTOGRAPH BOOK A second item brought in by Smith relatives from Spring Lake was an autograph book that belonged to Lucien B. Upham, usually called "Bess" or "Bessie;" son of Captain J. N. Upham. Most of the autographs date from his school days 1884 to 1886. One long page of advice for life is from Lizzie Hamilton, one of his teachers. Steve Moreland gives his address as "Singapore Mich." and another friend, Kattie Brower of Holland, decorates the page with a sailing vessel named the L. B. Upham. Both Upham and his brother, Sherman, earned their Master's papers and sailed on the Great Lakes.

11/09/2023

11/18/2023