SMITH, ERVIN B., farmer and stock raiser, Sec. 8, P.O. Greenfield, was born in 1853, in Greene County [Illinois]. His father W. W. Smith, was born in 1825, in Indiana, and came to Greene County in 1832 and died Nov. 30, 1877; owned 240 acres of land at his death; was married twice; first in 1852, to Mary A. Short, who was born in 1830; had four children by this marriage: Ervin, Henry, Elizabeth, and Amanda; married the second time to Lettence Whitlock, who was born in 1838.
Source: [Anonymous], History of Greene County, Illinois; Its Past and Present (Chicago: Donnelley, Gassette & Loyd, Publishers, 1879), p. 627.