Lincoln Cottage

The Marietta Register, September 21, 1871

This is the name of the finest residence in Decatur Township, this county - the residence of William C. Smith.

It is a stone house, thirty-eight feet square, walls sixteen feet high, has under it a nice cellar; the walls of the house are of dressed and very firm sandstone that will stand the weather; it contains a front and a rear porch, upon which the hall in the center opens; has ten rooms, besides a clothes room; gable to the road; immediately over the front porch, cut in the stone, a large American Eagle, fully spread, holding in its talons two flags of the Union; and higher up, cut plainly in the stone, is the name "Lincoln Cottage, 1870."

The stone work is that of Mr. Smith himself, who never served to learn the trade, except he once worked with Daniel Drain of Dunham Township twenty-one days in laying up cellar walls. He is a mechanic and a workman, as is attested by this house, with its finely engraved eagle and flags - the skill of his own hands - although his business has always been that of a farmer, save the years of gallant service he spent in fighting rebels with his brother Joseph A. Smith in the 39th Ohio under Col. Noyes, now our Republican candidate for governor - when he "marched down to the sea" with Sherman.

Mr. Smith had to assist him in the stone work, four boys who knew nothing about the business, except as they picked it up under his own superintendence. The boys are honored by having their names cut on a stone in the front wall of the house - T. Stephens, S. S. Quinn, D. A. Newell, and S. Brooker. Lincoln Cottage, the American Eagle, and the Old Flag, all prove that Mr. Smith takes no "new departure" from his war record. Creditable all around.