BAY COUNTY
Memorial Report
by W. R. McCormick

Dr. George Edward Smith died February 15, 1887, at his home in Bay City. Dr. Smith was born in Troy, Oakland county, Michigan, October 2, [p.25] 1825. He came to Saginaw in 1837, where he learned the trade of a printer, when his health failed. To improve it he accompanied his brother, Capt. David Smith, on a trip or two on the schooner, Coneaut Packet, and was shipwrecked on Lake Huron, above Goderich, on the Canada shore. They were given up for lost, and it was some six weeks before they were heard from, it being late in the fall when they put in an appearance, nearly naked and with scarcely any shoes on their feet. There was great rejoicing among their friends when they arrived.
He then commenced the study of medicine with Dr. George Davis, of Saginaw City, and graduated at the Cleveland Medical College of Ohio, in 1851. He removed to Lower Saginaw, now Bay City, the same year. He was married about this time to Miss Abbie Hart, of Lapeer, by whom he had four children. Dr. Smith was the first physician in the lower end of the Saginaw Valley. In 1861 he went into the mercantile business which he followed up to 1878, when he again assumed his profession. Dr. Smith was postmaster of Bay City for many years previous to 1861.