Smith, James (5)

Smith, James (5), a Presbyterian minister, was, born in Scotch Valley, Blair Co., Pa., Sept. 5, 1819. His father was an elder in the Church at Hollidaysburg, of which the son afterwards became a member. He was graduated at Jefferson College in 1843, and entered Princeton Theological Seminary in the autumn. of the same year. After completing the course he graduated, and was licensed by the Presbytery of Huntingdon at Clearfield, Pa., Oct. 8, 1846. The following April he was dismissed to the Presbytery of Clarion, and was ordained as an evangelist by that presbytery Sept. 1, 1847. After preaching one year as an evangelist, he was again received into the Presbytery of Huntingdon in 1848, and in April, 1849, he was called to the pastorate of the Little Valley Church. He did not choose to be installed as pastor, but supplied the pulpit until 1855. Joining the Allegheny Presbytery, he was, soon after leaving his former charge, installed by the last-named presbytery over the Church at Bridgewater. In 1857 he again changed his relation, and was installed pastor of the Church at Mount Joy by the Donegal Presbytery. Here he continued to labor with great acceptability and usefulness among a people strongly attached to him, and he to them, for a period of ten years, when, owing to the failure of his health, he was obliged to submit to the dissolution of the pastoral relation. For the last eight years of his lite feeble health prevented him from performing ministerial duties, and he gradually declined until his death, Oct. 4, 1875. (W.P.S.)