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History of Wetzel County, West Virginia
by John C. McEldowney, Jr., 1901

Pages 86-87
ISAAC SMITH.

One of the most remarkable men in the history of West Virginia is
Isaac Smith. At his death he was the oldest man in West Virginia, and
probably the Southern States. He was born at Williamsport, Washington
county, Pennsylvania, in the year of 1789, and lived to be 109 years
old, which was but a few years back. He was a man of simple nature,
kind, strong and always industrious. He lived until his death in
Proctor Hollow, a ravine of five miles in length, running east and
west through Wetzel county, in a small log cabin, about two miles
from Proctor Station, on the Ohio River R. R. He erected the building
with his own hands when he came to West Virginia with his family,
sixty-nine years before his death. Then the country was a wide
forest, with only a few families scattered here and there over the
country. His nearest neighbor was a man by the name of Hogan, who
resided with his family five miles further up the run.

Some of the older residents who remember him when he was forty to
fifty years of age, say he could lift a barrel of whisky and drink
out of the bunghole, and that he has often picked up two barrels of
salt set one upon the other at a single lift. But of these things Mr.
Smith never boasted. He had a smile for everyone and enjoyed a good
joke as well as any person. He followed the occupation of keel
boating on the Monongahela river until he was forty years of age,
when he sold out his property and moved to West Virginia. When he
settled at Proctor there were few if any Indians remaining, and the
only thing to be feared was from wild animals, catamounts, wild cats
and a few wolves. There was also plenty of wild game. Mr. Smith's
father settled at Elizabeth, Pa., in the latter part of the last
century. His name was Samuel Smith, and he married Sallie Watt, the
result of which union was several sons, among them being the subject
of this sketch. Isaac Smith received very little education, but
learned the trade of keel boating at an early age, which he followed
many years. He married Sarah Hutson, and to them were born five sons,
Robert, Charles, Thomas, Samuel and John. Mr. Smith made his home
with his grandson, Albert Anderson, who lives on the old homestead,
where his mother was born and raised.

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