Harley Flavel Smith, son of Richard (son of David) Smith and Sarah, daughter of Edward White and Sarah Tourtelotte, was born at Townshend, Vermont, September 28, 1808; educated at Chester Academy and Middleburg College; went to Saratoga to study law under locally eminent lawyers; went to Wyoming village where he taught mathematics and classics in a school of some repute in western New York; continued law study at Pike; admitted to practice in 1838 and opened an office at Castile, where he abode till the end of 1848. In 1850 he came to Elkhorn and formed a partnership with Horatio S. Winsor, and this firm was one of the strongest in the count}- for many years.
About 1870 the firm dissolved, and in 1877 he received a younger partner in the person of Jaynes B. Wheeler, ending in the latter’s county judgeship in 1886. The old man’s active career then closed, and his few remaining years were given to an endless, unreadable legal defense of the authenticity as historic truth, of the five Mosaic books of the Bible. He wrote with a stub steel-pen, in the crabbiest of characters, and as the ink on the first foolscap sheet would scarcely be dry when he reached the end of the third sheet, the general appearance of his manuscript would suggest that his left arm defaced while his right hand scribbled, lie was a public-spirited and in all ways excellent citizen, a kind and often helpful neighbor, and a friend to be trusted.
He never cared to hold office, but would have accepted a judgeship of circuit or supreme court had it come to him without his asking. He married September 15, 1833, Lydia Ann, daughter of David Nourse and Nancy George. She was born at Rockingham, Vermont, December 4,1809, and died at Elkhorn. May 7, 1881, leaving a daughter. Mrs. Smith was one of the best of homemakers.
From: Beckwith, A.C. (1912). History of Walworth County Wisconsin