Wausau pilot. [volume] (Wausau, Wis.) 1896-1940, 1908-12-01
JUDSON M. SMITH.

The death of Judson HI. Smith closed
the earthly career of striking person
| atty
His boyhood was spent among the
granite hills of New England But the
power OF initiative and the New England
instinct for constructive work lead him
far from that early environment. As
builder Of railroads he grew into CON-
handing figure. Among men of large
affairs he stood with the foremost as an
equal.
| He came to Wausau, after construct
ing what is now the Wisconsin Valley
division of the G NJ & ST p railroad,
and entered upon the administration
and sale of 2O0. 900 acres of land that he
and bis associates had obtained as the
consideration for this work II was an
untried field FOR him but he grappled
courageously with all its problems
They required all his native strength
and business equipment, but he was
equal to the task. Most of this land lay
in wilderness, and north of it, the far
Their wilderness stretched to Jake
Superior. The land was universally
| believed to have but little value. The
yearly burden of taxes and other
charges against it was enormous. The
selling value of the little that could be
sold was small 1t was wooded with
great forests, almost valueless, and not
alluring to those who could easily reach
the great prairies west of the Mississippi
T.uly, his was the task of giant He
nett like giant and speedily acquired
experience and skill in dealing with this
great domain. When many of more ex-
perience showed little faith in this en-
terprise, their doubts only made him
grip his own faith with a stronger
spirit-a spirit mistaken before every
storm. SO he stood, a fitting product of
the New England mountains which had
nurtured his youth. disappeared often
during all the early period of his life in
Wausau, before the Wisconsin legisla-
ture on matters affecting the community
in which his lot was cast. By his energy
",
thwarted many attempts to deprive
Marathon county of large portions of
its territory. 1t is because of his efforts
that this county remains with un
changed boundaries, the magnificent
principally that it now is.
He lived to see the stubborn wilder
ness that frowned upon his early en-
deavor, grow into fertile farms, the
place of slightly homes, of barns burst
ing with the harvests. He lived to see
Wausau grow from crude numbering
village, into splendid, opulent city,
of distinguished citizenship. In this
citizenship he was a distinctive and
dominating figure. In all these activi-
ties and throughout all this develop
ment, he bore himself like man, with |
ju9tice and fairness, to all He was past |
the meridian of life when he came to |
Wausau, but fer many years the spirit |
and vigor of youth remained with him |
Those who knew him during this time,
like to remember him best as he was
whe. his natura, powers were unabated;
not as he became in the last years Of his
life, when his eyes grew dim with age |
and the shadows of death creps uron |
him. His life extended far beyond the |
three score years and ten allotted to |
man. But he lived to gain the three
fold blessing of the great King.
Length Of days il mis- right hand, and |
in his left, riches and honor.
Dec. LIST, 1908.
NEAL Brown