By Marilyn May
Milford History
George J. Smith, circa 1886.
Anyone who has lived in Milford has certainly heard of George J. Smith, whose descendants have kept his name, legacy and businesses alive for more than 137 years. His son, grandsons and great granddaughter have carried on the real estate, insurance and funeral home businesses.
But who was George Judson Smith? Few men founded so many businesses, traveled so much, enjoyed so much and learned so much as this self-made man and intrepid traveler.
Smith (1863-1951) was born and raised in Milford and as a boy kept diaries and wrote stories of his childhood in the early 1860s and 1870s. In his later years, he wrote extensive diaries of his travels abroad.
His family lived at 171 Broad St., where Coldwell Banker Realty is today. The Smiths still own the land.
His boyhood pursuits were baseball, sledding, climbing trees, gathering hickory nuts and rowing to Charles Island, where he had some overnight stays. He had typical boyhood trials of falling out of trees, getting poison ivy and suffering an attack by wasps after he unknowingly disturbed their nest.
Early in the winter, the Wepawaug River behind Town Hall would begin to freeze, but it was not always safe enough for skating.
“Very few of my boyhood winter days passed without breaking through the ice and getting more or less of a ducking,” he wrote.
By the end of winter, things were different.
“The ice on the Wepawaug usually froze to a foot or more in thickness, and when it broke up in the spring, large cakes of ice would come floating down the river. We would run and jump from one cake to another. It was an exciting sport, but risky,” he wrote.
Smith also recalled the day when a boy behind him slipped, and they both splashed into the river.
“We rolled along getting thoroughly soaked from head to foot. We scrambled out and did not linger long,” he tells us.
“During certain times of the year there was good skating on the Green as there were places where the water would settle and freeze,” he wrote.
“After a heavy fall of snow, it was the custom for the farmers who lived in or near Wheeler’s or Bryan’s farms to hitch their oxen to sleds and break open the roads to the center of town.”
“This was always an occasion, enjoyed by the farmers and the townspeople. Sometimes, those who lived in the most northerly sections would be given assistance by those a little nearer to town, as in places the drifts were deep and hard to break through. After the forces had been joined they would proceed to the center, as many as 12 or 15 yokes of oxen,” he wrote.
George’s parents were Thaddeus Smith and Sarah DeForest Smith. When he turned 6, they decided it was time for him to go to school.
“Miss Anna Baird, whose memory I fondly cherish, kept a school for young children in a house on the corner of Broad and Center Streets, only a short distance from my home,” he wrote.
“At the opening of school, a passage of scripture was read, and a prayer offered, and then Miss Baird would read us a story.” Smith recalled that Baird’s classes also included time for “The Commandments, and some of the psalms (that we) committed to memory.”
“A few feet east of Miss Baird’s house was a house belonging to a man by the name of George Washington Tibbals, a Civil War veteran, whose father served in the Revolutionary War,” he wrote. “He had a large canvas picture…it must have been at least 10 feet long and 6 feet high of Washington crossing the Delaware River. On the 22nd day of February (Washington’s birthday), the picture was always hung on the side of the house facing the street and was admired by all the children.”
Smith also recalled the Tibbals family. “Next to the Tibbals’ house was a grocery on the corner of Broad and Wharf (High Street) streets, which had been kept by a member of the Tibbals family for many years.”
At some point, someone got the idea to cement the barrel of a Revolutionary War cannon into the ground, muzzle-side down, on the corner in front of the Tibbals’ store, (now Tony’s Bikes). This relic remains in the same position, a valued memento of the war, and a real problem for some drivers.
One morning while at school, he heard the ringing of the bell at the First Church of Christ. “At that time, it was customary when death occurred to ring the bell: three for a girl, five for a boy, seven for a woman, and nine for a man.”
It turned out that, “during the night, burglars had broken into the grocery and hardware store on the corner of Cherry and Prospect Street owned by Nathan Fenn. Mr. Fenn had been awakened by noise and rushed into the store, and in trying to intercept the thieves he was shot and killed.”
The murderers were never apprehended.
“My father worked at his trade making what was called ‘turns,’ a grade of fine shoes for the ladies for the Joyce Shoe Company of New Haven.”
That job, however, was not to last forever, and the family fell on hard times.
“My father, having lost his eyesight, or at least it was so impaired, gave up his job as a shoemaker. My mother took in boarders for several years.”
Fortunately, the Baldwin and Lamkin Shoe Factory was near young Smith’s home. George Smith got an apprentice job and recalled, “My first duties were to sweep the first floor…and then assist in packing the shoes” He worked for $3 a week for a year and then got a $1 a week raise.
“A shoe cutter was considered as high a position as a shoe industry offered, with the exception of foreman. I learned the various stages leading up to the cutting department. It was slow work and at various times rather discouraging, but I finally succeeded in becoming a cutter. Most of the shoes manufactured were for ladies’ wear, but one man, a Mr. Perry in Stratford, cut the uppers for men. He was a man over 70, and I was made his assistant and from him learned to take measurements and cut shoes for special customers.
“The working hours in those days were from 7 in the morning until noon and from 1 until 6,” he said. Winter and summer were the busy times, but there was little work in the other seasons. During slow times, he dug gardens for neighbors, sawed wood, worked in a plant nursery and did anything he could to help the family.
“The year 1879 was the close of my school life, but not the end of my studies,” he wrote. “I would have liked to have taken college courses but that seemed to be out of the question, so I bought some books and studied in the evenings.”
Then one day, John C. North, who worked for a large insurance company in New Haven, bought a house on Broad Street.
“After a while, I asked him if I could act as his agent in Milford and see if I could get some business,” he wrote.
It was slow work and did not bring much return.
“I continued to work at the shoe factory and solicited insurance in the evening…although the shoe business did not prosper,” he wrote.
“Some years later, after Mr. North’s death, the company gave me a full agency,” and the same companies were represented for many years by what became the Smith Insurance firm.
Along with his wife “Nellie,” the former Ellen Rhoena Clark, they raised three sons and a daughter.
George J. Smith had four children: George J. Smith, Jr., Alvin Smith, Helen Smith, and Winthrop A. “Pink” Smith. “Pink” had three sons: Winthrop “Win” S. Smith, who ultimately ran the funeral home, Danforth “Dan” Smith who took over the insurance business and DeForest “Frosty” Smith, who headed the real estate enterprise. Today, Dan’s daughter, Deirdre “Gremmy” Smith-Dey, of the fourth generation, carries on the insurance business.
However, the funeral home closed in 2021 and the property has been made into condos.
Meanwhile, back in 1917, George J. Smith and Nellie went by boat to Florida to a National Funeral Directors’ meeting. The US, however, had just entered World War I and shipboard precautions had to be taken.
“At nightfall, no deck lights were shown, and curtains were drawn over the windows. At the time we were enroute, our son, Alvin, was on his way in a convoy ship to France,” Smith wrote.
In 1930 Smith went to the World’s Conference of Congregational Churches in Bournemute, England: “To cross the Atlantic and visit Europe had been one of my ambitions.” After the week-long conference, he and Nellie took an extended trip through France, Holland, Scotland, Germany, Switzerland and Austria.
Back home in 1931, Smith suffered a life-threatening medical episode. One doctor’s diagnosis at New Haven Hospital was incurable cancer, but Dr. William F. Verdi at St. Raphael’s Hospital also examined Smith and said it was an ulcer of the intestine that he could treat. The ulcer had spread and that meant another operation would be needed later.
“I was in critical condition and my recovery seemed doubtful,” he wrote, but he was able to go home for a time to rest and gain strength.
“Three months later I was sent back to the hospital for another operation.” Smith wrote he eventually had four operations.
“I was not able to take up active business duties…and on Dr. Verdi’s advice, Nellie and I went to California for several months.”
Smith continued recovering and was excited to connect with Rotary Clubs in Pasadena, Los Angeles, Burbank and San Francisco.
Once back in Milford, his attention was turned to Nellie’s health.
“My sickness had been a severe strain on my wife who was not in the best physical condition,” he wrote. On the advice of a physician, a pleasant place was found in Vermont where Nellie could rest. She was there for six weeks and returned home a little stronger.
Meanwhile, Smith attended another National Funeral Director’s convention, this time in New Orleans.
Sadly, one diary entry reads, “After my return home, Nellie gradually grew worse and the morning of Nov.12 (1934) she passed away. Her passing left a great void in life. Acute sorrow gradually eases, but the wound in my heart will never heal.”
As a widower, he began traveling abroad for two or three months every winter. It was common for a friend in Milford to ask, “Well George, where are you going this year?” Some answers were Mexico, the Amazon River, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, Egypt or whatever part of the world he wanted to see next.
His joy was traveling abroad on small cargo ships where he delighted in getting to know the other passengers, many of whom became lasting friends. First he studied the history of the country and then included much background in all his travel diaries.
Smith was never without his International Rotary Club directory of when and where clubs met – and he attended many meetings in many countries. He also found time for a Masonic lodge meeting.
Smith founded the Rotary Club of Milford in 1924, so it is fitting that on the club’s 100th anniversary in 2024, his great grandson, Tad, will be the club’s president. Community service and leadership seem to be in the bloodlines of the family.
Marilyn May is a lifelong resident of Milford and on the Board of the Milford Historical Society.