Page:One of a thousand.djvu/576

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562 SMITH SMYTH. ance Company ; fifteen years a director of the First National Bank, and four years a director of the Gloucester Net & Twine Company, and also vice-president. SMITH, Wellington, was born in Lee, Berkshire county, December 15, 1841. He was the only son of John R. and Par- thenia C. (Yale) Smith, and on his mother's side is a direct descendant of Captain Josiah Yale and Ruth Tracy, the first couple married in the town, and also a lineal descendant of Stephen Hopkins, who came over with the Pilgrims in the " Mayflower " in 1620. Mr. Smith spent his boyhood in Lee and Russell, his father owning a paper mill in the latter town with his brother Elizur, and with Cyrus W. Field, since of Atlantic Cable fame. He gained his school education in the common schools, and by attendance at the higher schools kept by Alexander Hyde at Lee, and Joseph Hyde at Sheffield. At the age of fifteen Mr. Smith was en- gaged as clerk in the store of Smith & Bosworth in Lee, but a year after, at the age of sixteen, took charge of the store of I). C. Hull & Sons, as general manager of the store and business. Two years later, in company with H. S. Hurlbert, he began business for himself in a store and flouring mill. This was unprofitable, and he went to New York at the age of twenty, and became a salesman for Leonard Brothers in the silk business, at a dollar a day. His success was so marked that his salary was handsomely increased, and he was taken into partnership ; but in two years he left to enter the Smith Paper Company as treasurer. On the organization of the American Paper Makers' Association, in 1878, he was chosen first vice-president, and subsequently president. He is still a prominent leader in the paper-making business of the United States. In 1874 Mr. Smith made a tour of Europe, and wrote home letters of great interest. At the convention of the nth congressional district Mr. Smith was elected a delegate to the national Repub- lican convention of 1S80. He proposed General Garfield before the meeting of the convention, and his views were published in the " New York Herald " and other pa- pers. In 1882 he was chosen executive councilor for the 8th district — the year Gen. Butler was elected governor, and in the same year was president of the Berk- shire Agricultural Society. In 1861 Mr. Smith married Mary, daugh- ter of William A. and Juliet (Clark) Shan- non, of Lee, who died in 1877, leaving two children : Augustus R. and Mary Shannon. In 1878 he married Annie, daughter of James and Harriet (Bulkley) Bullard. They have three children : Wellington Bullard, Etta Lucy and Elizur Smith. SMYTH, Egbert Coffin, was bom in Brunswick, Cumberland county, Maine, August 24, 1S29. His father was Pro- fessor William Smyth, so many years oc- cupying the chair of mathematics in Bow- doin College. His paternal grandparents were Caleb Smyth and Abiah Colburn. EGBERT C. SMYTH. His early education was shaped in pri- vate schools, under the tutorship of Rev. Smith B. Goodenow and Alfred Pike. Fitting for college at Dummer Academy, Byfield, Mass , in charge of Rev. Frederick A. Adams, M. A.. Ph. 1)., he entered Bow- doin College in 1844, and was graduated therefrom in 1848. After a season of school-teaching in charge of a high school at Farmington, N. H., he entered the Ban- gor Theological Seminary, and after com- pleting the junior year, served two years in Bowdoin College as tutor of Greek and mathematics. Returning then to the seminar}', he graduated in 1853. In July, 1856, he was ordained as a Congregational minister, having passed the interim as professor of rhetoric and oratory in Bow- doin College.