Henry Weston Smith, Wild West missionary and martyr
Methodist Minister Henry Weston Smith
Any mention of Deadwood, South Dakota usually evokes images of gambling and gunfights. Famous personalities such as Wild Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane made the city synonymous with Wild West adventure and excitement.
But the real hero of Deadwood didn’t play poker. Circuit Riding Methodist Minister Henry Weston Smith, also known as “Preacher Smith,” came to the Black Hills to spread the Gospel.
Sadly, his devotion cost him his life: in August of 1876, Smith was murdered while traveling from Deadwood to the nearby mining camp of Crook City, where he planned to preach.
Smith was just shy of 50 when he died, but he packed a lot of action and adventure into that half-century. He preached, practiced medicine, fought in the Civil War, and participated in the Black Hills Gold Rush, one of the most exciting periods in American history. This bi-vocational minister endured tragedy and hardship while gaining the respect of his contemporaries. Deadwood’s first marshal, the famous Seth Bullock, called Smith, “an earnest worker in his Master’s Vineyard.”
Smith’s story includes plenty of sadness. He was born in 1827, in Ellington, Conn., approximately 1,900 miles from Deadwood. He was the youngest of five children, and, when his father died, Smith probably helped support his mother. He married at age 20, but his wife died just one year later while giving birth to a son.
Smith was still in his early 20s when he entered the ministry, and he soon became a member of the Methodist Episcopal church, one of the first Methodist denominations in the United States.
In 1858, Smith remarried. In the summer of 1862, he joined the Fifty-Second Regiment of the Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry and marched off to fight in the Civil War. It was a nine-month enlistment, just enough time for him to see action at Port Hudson, Franklin, and Vicksburg.
After leaving the military, Smith returned home to Connecticut and began studying medicine. He became a doctor in 1867, and, sometime afterwards, he and his family moved to Louisville, Ky. Smith practiced medicine while continuing to preach.
In 1874, word spread that gold had been discovered in the Black Hills, in Dakota Territory. Miners began flooding the region. They soon were followed by a motley assortment of gamblers, drifters and adventurers who were looking to strike it rich.
Recognizing that the Black Hills had become America’s newest mission field, Smith headed west.
Smith arrived in Custer City, Dakota Territory, in May 1876. On May 7th, he conducted the Black Hills’ first worship service and preached its first sermon. Thirty men and five women were in attendance. Smith took his text from Psalm 34:7:
The angel of the LORD encampeth round about them that fear him, and delivereth them.
One of the men in attendance that day was future Deadwood merchant George Ayres, who recorded that Smith’s sermon was “very interesting” and “the congregation paid strict attention … except when there was a dog fight outside.”
Smith knew the real center of action in the Black Hills was Deadwood, approximately 50 miles from Custer City, so he joined a wagon train headed in that direction. It was a three day journey, during which time he got to know the man in charge, Captain C.V. Gardner.
Gardner quickly discovered that Smith was a hard worker and a valuable addition to the party. He reports, “We made our first camp near Hill City, and hardly got the team unhitched until our passenger had built a fire and water provided for the evening meal.”
Gardner also discovered that Smith was in the Black Hills to pursue a higher calling.
When ready, our guest was absent. I looked around and found him sitting on a log a few rods distant, reading. I went to him, and to my surprise found him reading a Bible. After a few words with him, he told me he was a Methodist preacher. I remarked that I thought he was up against a hard proposition.
Smith replied, “Possibly so, but I will do the best I can.”
After arriving in Deadwood, Smith supported himself by cutting firewood and helping build cabins to house the city’s burgeoning population, which, at that time, numbered somewhere between 3,000 and 4,000 people. But on Sundays, Smith pursued his passion for preaching. Apparently there was no formal church building in town, so, Gardner reports, Smith usually preached in front of a local drug store.
“He had no trouble securing an audience,” Gardner noted.
While in Deadwood, Smith performed the Black Hills’ first marriage ceremony. He also must have been in town at the time of Deadwood’s most infamous incident, the murder of Wild Bill Hickok at the hands of Jack McCall on August 2, 1876, inside Nuttal & Mann’s Saloon No. 10.
There had been and would be many killings in the camp, but the murder of Wild Bill cemented the city’s place in Western lore.
On Sunday, August 20 – just 18 days after McCall shot Hickok in the back of the head at point-blank range – Smith again preached on Deadwood’s streets. He then prepared to make the nine-mile journey to the mining camp of Crook City, where he planned to deliver a sermon.
Locals say he posted a note on his cabin door that read, “Gone to Crook City to preach, and if God is willing, will be back at three o’clock.” Disavowing the advice of friends, Smith traveled alone.
Unfortunately, he never made it to his destination.
His body was later discovered on a trail in the east end of the valley, a little more than halfway to Crook City. He had been shot once through the chest, but had not been robbed.
Monument to Henry Weston Smith
To this day, the identity of Smith’s killer(s) remains a mystery. Some locals argued that Indians were responsible; others believed that Deadwood’s saloon, gambling hall and brothel owners, angry at Smith for converting their customers, had arranged his murder.
Preacher Smith was buried in Whitewood Cemetery, with one of his parishioners conducting the service. Smith’s body was later reburied in Mount Moriah cemetery, which also is the final resting place for Hickok, Calamity Jane, Bullock, and most other noteworthy Deadwood citizens.
In 1914, the Society of Black Hills Pioneers erected a monument to Smith’s memory. In the 1990s, road construction forced its removal. A new monument, located three miles south of Deadwood, was dedicated on August 20, 1995, exactly 119 years after Smith’s untimely death.
During the ceremony, local historian and attorney Reed Richards read the sermon that Preacher Smith had planned to deliver in Crook City 119 years before.
Sources:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=961