BIOGRAPHY: M. L. SMYSER, Mifflin County, PA 

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The Commemorative Biographical Encyclopedia of the Juniata Valley, 
Comprising the Counties of Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata, and Perry, 
Pennsylvania.  Chambersburg, Pa.: J. M. Runk & Co., 1897, Volume I, 
pages 437-438.
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  REV. M. L. SMYSER, Lewistown, Mifflin county, Pa., is a native of York, 
Pa. He is one of a large family, sons and daughters of Jacob and Elizabeth 
(Diehl) Smyser, and is descended from Matthias Smyser, who in 1738, 
emigrated from Germany, and settled in the vicinity of the town of York.
  M. L. Smyser received his primary education in the common schools of York 
and of Baltimore, Md., and was afterwards a pupil at the York Academy. Left 
an orphan at the age of nine, he was dependent upon his own resources, and 
at the age of seventeen began teaching. But study went hand in hand with 
self-supporting work, and by the time he reached his majority, Mr. Smyser 
had completed his academic studies, and having experienced religion in 1857, 
was ready to present himself to the East Baltimore Conference of the 
Methodist Episcopal church in 1863, and to enter upon his theological 
course. This occupied four years. In 1867, Mr. Smyser graduated to full 
membership in the Conference and was ordained an elder. He spent his early 
manhood in the ministry in the State of Maryland, having been stationed at 
Hampstead, Westminster, Frederick, and Havre de Grace. He was transferred in 
1872 to the Central Pennsylvania Conference, and stationed at Bellefonte; 
among his parishioners there were several distinguished men, one of whom is 
the present executive head of the State, Governor Hastings. The membership 
of the Bellefonte congregation was doubled during Rev. Smyser's pastorate of 
three years. He was also largely instrumental in the building of a new house 
of worship. In his next congregation, that of Phillipsburg, Pa., he received 
two hundred and twenty-five converts into membership. At Bloomsburg, 
Columbia county, Pa., he met with similar success; from this charge he went 
to Berwick in the same county. Here, also, success attended his ministry - 
large additions to the membership, increased offerings to mission and other 
benevolent causes and material prosperity. In 1882, Mr. Smyser was appointed 
presiding elder of the Danville district, which then comprised forty-two 
pastoral charges, and in which nearly fifty pastors came under his 
administration. In 1884, he was elected a reserve delegate to the General 
Conference, and was appointed by the Board of Bishops a representative from 
the State of Pennsylvania to the Centennial Conference of American 
Methodists, held in Baltimore in December. In 1886, he was appointed pastor 
at Chambersburg, Pa. From that place he went to Bedford, Pa., where his 
earnest and conscientious labors were again rewarded by the reception of 
about two hundred converts into the membership. Here he was instrumental in 
remodeling and improving the house of worship, and in building a new 
parsonage, costing $5,300. Here Mr. Smyser organized the first Epworth 
League chapter in the Conference; the well-known League, now of vast 
proportions, was then only beginning to extend through the church. His next 
station was Curwensville, Clearfield county, Pa.,; here he received in one 
year about one hundred converts and was actively interested in the movement 
towards the erection of a new church edifice, which cost $24,000. He had 
secured about two-thirds of the required sum, when impaired health compelled 
him to give up his pastorate, and he became superintendent of the Methodist 
Bookroom, at Harrisburg, Pa., and was so occupied for two years. Mr. 
Smyser's appointment to the pastorate of the Methodist Episcopal church at 
Lewistown was made in 1895; thus far, his faithful ministry has been 
exercised with success, the membership having been increased by over two 
hundred, the Sunday-school nearly doubled, and benevolent collections 
improved.
  Rev. M. L. Smyser was married December 27, 1865, to Lydia A., daughter of 
Hon. William H. Margaret (Shunk) Hoffman, of Baltimore, Md., Their children 
are: Prof. William E., of the faculty of De Pauw University, Greencastle, 
Ind.; Jenny H.; Margaret G.; and Harry, who died in childhood. Both of Mrs. 
Smyser's parents are deceased. Their family consisted of six children. Her 
father was largely interested in the manufacture of paper, in Baltimore, Md. 
He served several terms in the Maryland legislature, and was a member of the 
Constitutional Convention of that State in 1863.