Georgia and Georgians - the Digital Library of Georgia

2866 GEORGIA AND GEORGIANSthat year he was united in marriage with Miss Olivia Caflton, daughter ofone of Athens' well known families of notable distinction. Maj. HenryCarlton was a physician of note in both private and army practice. Heserved as a captain in the Confederate service of the famous Troupe Artillery, and again in later life in the United States army during the Spanish-American war. Doctor Carlton married a Miss Helen Newton, of Athens,where also their daughter met and married Major Butler. Both Mr. andMrs. Butler are leaders in the work of the Presbyterian Church. The majoris an elder and also superintendent of the Sunday school, while Mrs. Butleris superintendent of the primary department of the latter organization.Both are treasured by friends and community among those achieving successfully a "constructive social life." Major Butler's political loyalty is democratic. He is a man of broad civic interests, willing to be not only agentleman and a scholar of true Southern type, but also an efficient manamong men and a thoughtful leader of boys toward a noble and virilemanhood.HON. JAMES F. SMITH. While following the peaceful pursuits of agriculture, and with intelligent attention through season after season, watchingthe world-old miracle wrought of seed time and harvest, men learn how tobe patient and hopeful, how to weigh probabilities, how to balance effort andresult, how to be joyful in success and philosophic in disaster and a hundredother lessons that prepare them for duties in entirely different fields of labor.Not unusual is it in this great country of ours, to find men of stable prominence, filling high position and exerting wide usefulness, whose greatestschool has been that of the farm, whose teacher has been experience andwhose books have been the fallow fields, the running brooks and the increaseof herds and flocks. Thus may be introduced one of the leading men ofRabun County, a jurist of distinction, a politician of influence and almost alifelong farmer, Judge James F. Smith, of Clay ton, Georgia.James F. Smith was born in Rabun County, Georgia, in September, 1851,and is a son of John F. and Sarah H. (Fuller) Smith. Both parents ofJudge Smith were born in Georgia and their entire lives were spent in thestate. Farming was the father's occupation and practically his only absencefrom his estate was during the years he gave to serving as a private in aGeorgia regiment, in the Confederate army, during the war between thestates. He survived to the age of eighty-one years, passing away in 1905,having reared a family of eleven children, James F. being the fifth in orderof birth. The mother died in 1907 at the age of eighty-three years.James F. Smith attended the country schools in boyhood and then becamea farmer and still continues to manage a large farm in his native county,owning many acres of well improved land, although since 1909 he has notbeen actively engaged. He has been a factor in democratic politics for a longtime and occasionally has accepted a public office, at one time serving twoterms as tax collector of Rabun County prior to being elected to his presentoffice of ordinary. The close of his first term found his public duties soefficiently performed that his party and the public generally accepted him asa candidate again and re-elected him. He has some additional interests,being a director of the Georgia Engineer & Construction Company.In 1871 Judge Smith was united in marriage with Miss Clarissa A. King,who is a daughter of Marcus L. King, a representative citizen of old familysettlement in Rabun County. The following children have been born toJudge and Mrs. Smith: Mrs. Sarah Burrel, who is a resident of Clayton,Georgia; Mrs. Mary A. Blaylock, who is a resident of Burton, Georgia;Mrs. Georgia E. Flanders, who resides in Emanuel County, Georgia; James L.,who lives in Stevens County; Thomas F. and Augustus L., both of whom liveat Clayton, Georgia; Hope, who lives in Stevens County; and Buren C.,