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Rev. A. B. Smart was born at Searsport, Maine, December 27, 1838. His
grandfather, Ephraim Knight Smart, was a fuller and was accidentally killed in
his own mill; he acted also in the capacity of a Methodist local preacher. His grandmother was Mary Cass, a relative of
Gen. Cass or Revolutionary fame. Benjamin Jones Smart, the father of the subject of this sketch, married
Abagail Kendall, who also had Revolutionary ancestry, being a granddaughter of
Gen. Kendall. The father died, leaving
his widow with three small children to support, the son, A. B., and two
daughters. Three years later the widow
married another man of the same family name, John B. Smart, who was a good
stepfather and a kind husband. On
reaching the age of fifteen, the boy, A. B., sailed on a 1200 ton ship for New Orleans and from there to Liverpool, returning to Boston. At sixteen he was
“converted” and from that time during the rest of his life took an active
interest in religious matters. He
continued to go on occasional voyages for five years, learning navigation and
the duties of a sailor, teaching school in the winter and usually spending the
remainder of the year on the sea. He
enlisted in 1861 but was taken ill while in training camp and compelled to
return home without getting into active service. In the fall of 1861 he entered the Buckport
Seminary from which he graduated in 1864. He entered ,Wesleyan University, from which he was
graduated in June, 1868. Two years later
he graduated from ,Boston University with degrees of A. B. and
A. M. He joined the East New York
Conference and was transferred to the Maine Conference and again to the Rock
River Conference, Illinois. From there he went to South Dakota as a missionary,
where he was active not only in religious work, but energetic in political
matters as well, helping to found two counties and the founder of the city of Wessington. He endowed a seminary with an undivided half
of eighty acres of land, and raised large sums of money for school
purposes. Meanwhile he founded churches
in Mitchell, Buron, Cavour, Mt. Vernon, Plankinton, Wessington
Springs, Alpena, Woonsocket and Bates. He was a delegate to the National Convention
of Good Templars in Chicago, in 1869, and has always
been an ardent Prohibitionist. Mr. Smart
was married to Ruby Jane Jordan in 1869. They are the parents of nine children, of whom five died in childhood. Two daughters are in Chicago and two in
California. Mrs. Smart has for nine
years been president of the Glendale W. C. T.U. and is an active worker in
religious and social lines. Mr. Smart is
chairman of the Prohibition Party in his district. He came to California with his wife in 1911.
From
History of Glendale and Vicinity by John Calvin Sherer. The Glendale Publishing
Company, c. 1922 F. M. Broadbooks and J. C. Sherer. p. 455-456.
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