Rev. L. Phillip Smithey

Rev. L. Phillip Smithey, about 1855-1889
Methodist Missionary
 
Buried in Masons Cemetery, Block 8, Lot 1, Grave 4

(Grave marker photo courtesy of the Pioneers’ Cemetery Association, Inc.)

---

Louis Phillip Smithey was born on October 24, 1855 or 1857, in Jetersville, Amelia County, Virginia. He was a younger son of Royal Smithey and his wife Mary Ann Elizabeth Hubbard. On the eve of the Civil War, Royal was employed as an overseer for George W. Jones, a wealthy farmer in Nottoway County. After the war, he returned to farming.
 
Phil Smithey seems to have been in somewhat delicate health as a boy, but early in life he aspired to go into the ministry. His older brother William also became a minister.
 
Following his father’s death in 1883, young Smithey enrolled in Vanderbilt University in Nashville. It was a Methodist Episcopal college, and Smithey took classes in the theological department. However, ill health impelled him to go west after a year. Moving to California, he served as a deacon in Azusa and Duarte. By 1887, his phthisis (tuberculosis) had advanced and he was suffering from pulmonary hemorrhages.
 
Seeking a drier climate, Phil Smithey moved to Prescott, Arizona, in the fall of 1887 and engaged in missionary work in what was then a wide-open frontier town. Though uncompromising against sin, he was said to have been of a cheerful disposition and ever sympathetic towards others. 
 
Thanks to Arizona’s salubrious climate, he lived for another two years and gained a small but devoted following among the residents of Prescott. Nevertheless, his health, never robust, continued to decline. When death became imminent, some advised him to go home to his family in Virginia, but he insisted on remaining in Arizona.
 
Smithey moved to Phoenix in August, 1889, and died two months later, on October 12. He was buried in the Masons Cemetery.
 
© 2025 by Donna L. Carr. Last revised 24 March 2025.

​If you would like assistance researching our interred, you can find more information on our website. You can contact us at [email protected] at any time. Thank you for your interest to preserve the history of Arizona's pioneers!