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Walter C. Smith
Civil engineer
[W. C. Smith is credited, along with F. L. Hoge, with designing the Main Street stone bridge.]
-- OBITUARY: from the Wheeling Daily Intelligencer, Thursday, January 21, 1897
AN OLD TIMER
Death of Walter C. Smith, a Veteran Civil Engineer
LIVED IN WHEELING 40 YEARS
Having Come Here From Washington City in the Employ of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad -- Was Chief Engineer of the Construction of the Hempfield Road. His Death was Entirely Unexpected -- He Was Found Dead in Bed.
A veteran railroad man who has been a continuous resident of Wheeling for more than forty years, Walter C. Smtih, died yesterday morning, at 3 o'clock, at the home of his son, Clement C. Smith, No. 142 South Penn street, Island. Mr. Smith retired on Tuesday night, apparently in good health, but the next morning was found dead in bed, and is supposed to have expired about 3 a. m.
Walter C. Smith was a native of Washington City, and was in the seventy-fifth year of his age. He was a graduate of Georgetown College, Georgetown, District of Columbia. He first came to Wheeling in 1852 as resident engineer for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company and a few years later was employed as chief engineer of construction on the Hempfield railroad, which ran from Wheeling to Washington, Pa., and was later absorbed by the Baltimore & Ohio. Except for a short absence in Virginia, Mr. Smith has been a resident of Wheeling uninterruptedly for over forty years.
Of late years he has been a sufferer from locomoter ataxia which rendered him almost entirely helpless and made it impossible for him to pursue his vocation, that of civil engineering. But for a time even after attacked by this disease, he did some surveying, though with great difficulty.
He was a man of attainments, reading and speaking French fluently and keeping himself up in the advance of the world of science and general progress.
He had been indisposed but a day or two and no serious consequences were anticipated, but yesterday morning he was found dead in his bed. The funeral will take place Friday afternoon at 2 o'clock, friends of the family invited. The interment is to be private, at Stone Church cemetery.
