Print
Permanent LinkRepresentative Robert Smyth View All Years
COL. ROBERT SMYTH was born in Ireland, February 26, 1814, and died in Mount Vernon, Iowa, April 3, 1898, at the age of eighty-four. His ancestors were among the Scotch Covenanters who fled to Ireland at a time of persecution. In 1834 he came to this country, where he first obtained employment as a field hand. As early as 1840 he removed to the Territory of Iowa, walking from Bloomington (now Muscatine) to Linn county. Eventually he became an extensive real estate owner in that county. In later years he went into the law and banking business. For most of the time from 1852 to 1866 he resided in Marion and was very prominent in political circles. He was the first postmaster of Franklin township; was township clerk for several years; was a member of the Sixth Territorial Legislature, 1843-‘44; a member of the First General Assembly, 1846, which held an extra session in 1848; a senator in the Twelfth and Thirteenth General Assemblies, and he was again elected a member of the House in 1884. During the war he was paymaster in the United States army and receipted during that time for more than ten million dollars.