Nathan G. Smith, M. D. Nathan G. Smith, M.D., botanical physician, at No. 64 Canal street, Grand Rapids, is a native of Oakland, Mich., was born September 2, 1836, a son of Frederick and Sarah (Gott) Smith, the former a native of Connecticut and the latter of Germany. Dr. Frederick Smith was a graduate of Yale college and passed his life principally in the drug business and the practice of medicine, and in farming. In 1836 he came from Connecticut to Michigan, and located in Dixboro, Washtenaw county, near Ann Arbor. He entered from the government a farm on the bank of Silver creek, where he lived many years, but died on his farm near Plymouth, Wayne county, at the ripe age of about eighty-five years, his wife also dying at the same place and at about the same age. The early life of Dr. Nathan G. Smith was passed among the Indians, there being but few white settlers in Washtenaw county, where his parents had located just after his birth. For ten years he attended school at Ypsilanti, Washtenaw county, and then entered Ann Arbor university, in the same county, where he pursued his medical studies for two years, and then entered the Cincinnati (Ohio) Medical college, where he pursued a course of study in botanical treatment, and the practice of this school of medicine he has continuously followed for forty-four years. In 1854 the doctor came to Grand Rapids, and here was in the active and successful practice o his profession when the Civil war broke out, at which juncture he was appointed to the medical department of the army. For two years he served as surgeon of the Twenty-second Michigan regiment, and then three years in hospitals, his last position being that of surgeon in hospital No. 1, at Murfreesboro, Tenn., where he was honorably discharged at the close of 1865, after a service of nearly five years. In his last position, he had charge of the entire hospital, including the dispensing of all medical supplies, and holds a very complimentary letter from the inspector-general of the United States, in which he is commended for his honorable record in handling over $50, 000 worth of these supplies, and for his painstaking and competent administration of his department. After the war, the doctor returned to Grand Rapids, but did not resume business until he had traveled from the Atlantic to the Pacific ocean, passing through thirteen different states. In 1870, however, he finally settled down here and re-engaged in practice. It has been his habit to prepare his own compounds, from native roots, herbs, etc., and has kept one man constantly employed in gathering ingredients. The doctor has been successful as a physician, but is a failure as a collector of fees. He has at this moment amounts outstanding that exceed $22,000 in Grand Rapids alone, but has never resorted to legal measure in order to enforce collection. H has never missed a call night or day, nor has he ever inquired, "Will he pay?" He has signed but three death certificates in ten years, and a singularity is, that he has never attended a funeral in his life, and has never been inside a church—being of Quaker stock. Dr. Smith was married in Sturgis, Mich., in 1870, to Miss Melissa Whiting, a native of Halifax, N. S., and of Scotch ancestry. Two children have blessed this union, viz: Arthur, a civil engineer by education, but now a dealer in hardware at East Jordan, Mich., and Effie G., who is living with her parents, neither of the two being married. In politics, the doctor is inclined to republicanism, but is liberal in his views and at times votes for a democratic friend.