Fonds F1691 - Henry Smith fonds

Henry Havelock Smith, 1857-1904, was probably born in Dalhousie, New Brunswick, the eighth of nine children of Sherman William Smith. He was at first rector of the Anglican church at Regina, Saskatchewan; then came to Pincher Creek about 1887 to become minister of St. John’s Anglican Church. He also established St. Martin’s Church at Livingstone, Alberta. In about 1895, he married Beatrice Balfour Henrietta Miles and they had three children: Eric Strachan Havelock Smith, ca. 1895-1916; Cyril Falconer White, 1900 - ca. 1920s; and Norah (Gray), 1902-1967. Beatrice died shortly after her husband’s death in 1904 and the children were raised by the Heaton family of Pincher Creek.

The Smiths were close friends with their neighbours, the Scobies and the Meads: Captain F.M. Scobie, a retired British officer, and his wife arrived at Pincher Creek in 1882 where they farmed and raised horses; Dr. Herbert Rimington Mead, the first resident physician in Pincher Creek, was married in 1892 to Edith Smith who had come out to Pincher Creek to keep house for her brother, Henry Havelock Smith. Dr. Mead’s mother, Jane Graham Lascelles Mead, 1836-1919, visited Pincher Creek in the late 1880s.