A biographical history of eminent and self-made men of the state of Indiana : with many portrait-illustrations on steel, engraved expressly for this work, Volume II, Part 15

Author:
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Cincinnati, Ohio : Western Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1006

USA > Indiana > A biographical history of eminent and self-made men of the state of Indiana : with many portrait-illustrations on steel, engraved expressly for this work, Volume II > Part 15

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MART, JAMES HENRY, A. M., superintendent of public instruction, was born at Center Harbor, New Hampshire, June 30, 1841. His ancestors for several generations were natives of New Hamp- shire. His father, William H. Smart, M. D., was for- merly a teacher in New Hampshire and Vermont, and subsequently a leading physician in New Hampshire ; and his mother was a daughter of Deacon Stephen Far- rington, of Hopkinton, New Hampshire. Doctor Smart had fitted up a room in his house in which he spent his leisure time in instructing his children. In this home

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school the subject of the sketch was taught the elements of knowledge. In 1847, Doctor Smart removed with his family to Concord, New Hampshire, in order to give his children the benefit of a good education. James was studious, and entered the high school at the age of twelve. About this time he heard a lecture to young men entitled, " Helping One's Self," which aroused a spirit of independence in him, and led him to a de- termination which has had an influence on his life ever since. He resolved to make his own way in the world, and not only to obtain an education, but to pay for it by his own labor. In accordance with this resolve, and with the consent of his father, he found employment in the store of Deacon Samuel Evans. Here he was trained in those business habits which are considered cardinal virtues by a New England storekeeper. He worked in the store all day, and read in the evenings the books bought with his earnings. He was employed in various places in Concord, New Hampshire, as clerk, bookkeeper, and cashier, until he was seventeen years old. During the greater part of this time he was in- structed in the winter evenings by his father and by his eldest brother, William H. Smart, junior, M. D., now of Claremont, New Hampshire, and by other private tutors. Since the age of twelve he has never received a dollar that he did not earn himself. He re-entered the Concord high school in September, 1858. Within six months he was made temporary teacher of a class in mathematics, and of a class in reading, in the school under the charge of Henry E. Sawyer, now of Middle- town, Connecticut, one of the most thorough teachers in New England. It was at this time that young Smart decided to devote himself to the business of teaching. He began giving instruction as a business at Sanborn- ton, October, 1859, on a salary of fifteen dollars a month and board. Here he "boarded around," hav- ing fifteen pupils and sixteen classes. He taught here ten weeks. At the close of his term he returned to Concord to complete his studies. In the spring of 1860 he commenced teaching the higher department of the village school of Laconia, New Hampshire, where he remained one year, and met with great success, being known as one of the best "schoolmasters" in the vicinity. In April, 1861, he took charge of the school in Claremont, New Hampshire, a beautiful town of about five thousand inhabitants. He remained here two years, and by this time he was considered one of the leading teachers of the state. He took an active part in the New Hampshire Teachers' Association, and in 1862 was appointed one of the editors of the New Hampshire Journal of Education. The following reso- lution, passed by a meeting of the citizens of Clare- mont, will show the appreciation they had of his work :

" Resolved, That, among the many good teachers who have had charge of the grammar department in

this district, none have been more successful than Mr. J. H. Smart. In government, tact, and industry, he has few equals, and possesses the happy faculty of gain- ing the esteem, while he secures the strictest obedience, of his scholars."

In the spring of 1863 he was invited to take charge of a ward school in Lagrange Street, Toledo, Ohio, by Professor Moses T. Brown, then city superintendent. He entered upon his duties in Toledo in April. In June of the same year he was promoted to the charge of the intermediate department in the high school building. The position occupied here was a difficult one; his scholars numbered over two hundred. The Toledo Blade (November 16, 1864), in an article on public instruction there, speaks of Mr. Smart's rooms as follows:

"To the visitor, the order and regularity existing in this school are truly surprising; notwithstanding the large number of pupils, the movements of classes or change of exercises produce no confusion, no noise, and every thing appears to move with the regularity of clock work."

Mr. Smart was acknowledged as one of the most suc- cessful teachers that Toledo ever had. In June, 1865, he was elected superintendent of the schools at Fort Wayne, Indiana, and was unanimously re-elected to the same position for nine succeeding years. Under his supervision the Fort Wayne schools obtained a high reputation for excellence. It is worthy of comment that during these ten years no formal complaint was ever lodged with the board against any one of the teachers, or against the superintendent, and that every vote passed in the meetings of the board was passed unanimously. During the time he was in Fort Wayne Mr. Smart was, ex officio, a member of the State Board of Education. He has thus been identified with the work of the department of public instruction from 1865 to the present time. In 1872 he was elected president of the Indiana State Teachers' Association, having served as chairman of the executive committee the preceding year. In 1874 he was elected state superin- tendent of public instruction for Indiana, and was twice re-elected to the same office. Since 1874 he has been, ex officio, one of the trustees of the State Normal School. In 1870 the degree of Master of Arts was con- ferred upon him by the State University of Indiana. In 1874 the same degree was conferred by Dartmouth College. He has been a prominent member of the National Teachers' Association for several years. In 1863 he wrote a little book entitled, "Gymnastic and Dumb-bell Exercises," which was published by Wilson, Hinkle & Co., of Cincinnati, Ohio. In 1876 he edited a book entitled, "The Indiana Schools, and the Men Who Have Worked in Them." He printed several re- ports while in Fort Wayne, and has issued five since

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he has become state superintendent. In the spring of 1880 he published a valuable commentary on the school law of Indiana. He has written, since he has been in office, many official opinions, which have been widely circulated. Mr. Smart is a member of the Presbyterian Church. He was married, July 21, 1870, to Mary H. Swan, daughter of Professor R. W. Swan, of Grinnell College, Iowa. Mr. Smart has filled the office of super- intendent of public instruction of Indiana with great acceptance to the people. He is indefatigable in his labors, and, owing to his active brain and not over- strong constitution, is in constant danger of over- working. When a new task presents itself he gives himself no rest till the work is completed. He never allows work to accumulate on his hands when it is at all possible to be disposed of as it comes. He never . allows a business letter to remain unanswered till to-mor- row when it can be answered to-day. His custom is to clear his table each day of all current correspondence and business. His system and strict order enable him to push his work, and make him capable of accomplish- ing more work in a given time than most men. Mr. Smart is about six feet in height, spare built, weighing about one hundred and forty pounds, of light complex- ion, light hair and whiskers, and nervous temperament. He is a good conversationalist, quick at repartee, and always enjoys a good joke. He is a fair public speaker, always making his points clearly, and expressing his thoughts in good English. His re-election by a majority of over twenty-five hundred votes more than that of any other man on the same ticket, and his nomination for a third term over half a dozen competitors, contrary to all precedent, are ample proofs that he is both popular and efficient. An additional compliment was paid him, in the appointment by the President as one of the commission- ers for the state of Indiana to the Paris Exposition of 1878. He has also been recently appointed by the President a member of the United States International Exhibition Commission. He was elected president of the National Teachers' Association at the meeting held at Chautauqua during July, 1880. It may be truthfully added that Mr. Smart stands as high as a member of the community in which he moves as he is eminent as an educationalist. With the teachers throughout the state the superintendent is esteemed, respected, and be- loved.

MITH, OLIVER HAMPTON. With little early ed- ucation, and no advantages during his life but those wrung by his own force of character from his situ- ation, no man of Indiana has been more prominent in so many lines of distinction. He was equally eminent as a lawyer, a statesman, a publicist, and a leader of public improvements, and in the very last years of

life attained no inconsiderable distinction as an author. His place in a record of the eminent men of the state should be a high one, as it certainly is an assured one in the reverence of all who knew him. We know but little of Mr. Smith's early life, and that little he tells us himself in the last paper of his "Sketches." His "grand-parents on both sides," he says, "were friends and associates of William Penn, crossed the Atlantic from England with him, and belonged to the same society." About twelve miles above Trenton, New Jer- sey, an island divides the Delaware at the base of Wells's Falls, which was called Smith's Island. Here his grandfather and father lived, and here he was born, on the 23d of October, 1794. In a rough stone school- house, in a solitary nook among the hills, he began going to school in 1800, at the age of six years, and led a life in no respect different from that of other farmers' boys. When he was about twelve he came near being drowned while swimming in the Delaware, being taken with cramp and carried to the bottom the third time, and held there several minutes, till he was brought up by a young man named Fox, and resuscitated after a half-hour's complete insensibility. One other mem- orable incident of his boyhood is told in the same mod- est little sketch. As he was approaching Morrisville one evening he heard an alarm of fire, and directly after saw a short, thick man, with a dark complexion, black hair, eyes, and whiskers, and a stern countenance, walking along the roof of a house, wetting it with water from a bucket which he carried. That man was the hero of Hohenlinden and the retreat through the Black Forest-General Moreau. Thomas and Letitia Smith, his parents, had nine children, seven boys and two girls, only two of whom survived him: one, Elijah, a farmer in Michigan ; and the other Mrs. Mary Hilbourn, a widow, residing near Philadelphia. An older brother, Moses B., who retained his Quaker faith and practice to the last, became a distinguished physician in Phila- delphia ; and a younger one, Edward, attained unusual proficiency in languages, being master of Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, German, and Italian. The youngest of the family, Septimus, studied law with Oliver in Con- nersville, and was subsequently an editor and judge in Wayne County. At the age of nineteen his father died, and he went to New York for a short time, and soon after worked a year or two in a woolen mill in Penn- sylvania. On reaching majority he received fifteen hun- dred dollars, his share of his father's estate, and lost it directly in a partnership, in which it was used to pay unsuspected debts of his partner. He saved a Canadian pony and a little money out of the wreck, and went to his oldest brother's farm, where, for probably the only time in his life, he spent a brief period in idling and playing at popular games. His brother's remonstrances stirred him out of this unwonted humor, and he started

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West, engaging at Pittsburgh to take two coal-boats to Louisville. In a perilous emergency he saved one of these boats by cutting its lashings to the other, when both would have been lost but for his coolness and presence of mind. In 1817, when twenty-three years of age, he came to Indiana, and settled at Rising Sun. The next winter he removed to Lawrenceburg and stud- ied law, was admitted to the bar in March, 1820, and, after a brief stay in Versailles, Ripley County, went to Connersville, where he remained till 1839, living there nineteen years and in Indianapolis twenty. In Conners- ville he soon found abundant practice in Justices' courts, and not a little in the higher courts, and here he laid the foundation of the reputation for energy, close ap- plication, and sound judgment which went with him through life, growing steadily stronger and wider to the last, and assuring him a success rarely attained by any man, and never by a man without solid brains and mas- terful strength of character. He was well situated for thorough development, for he was brought in constant collision with some of the ablest men that ever graced a Western bar: Judge John Test; Amos Lane, father of James H. Lane, of Kansas fame; Stephen C. Stevens, at one time on the Supreme Bench; James Rariden, William W. Wick, David Wallace, James T. Brown, James B. Ray, Charles H. Test, most of whom were afterwards members of Congress, and two were Gov- ernors. In his "Sketches" he tells us that his circuit in practice extended from the Ohio River to the Michi- gan line, and from the Ohio line to the White River Valley, including nearly half of the state, when Indians were still numerous, settlers rough and reckless, and life hard, as pioneer life always is. Of this stage of social development his "Sketches" are the only contempora- neous record we have, and they are already almost in- valuable to one who desires to learn the early history of the state. In 1821 he married Miss Mary Bramfield, a Friend, like his own family, by whom he had three children : Letitia, married to Thomas Sullivan; Marcus C., a farmer, now state Senator from the Delaware and Madison District ; and Mary, wife of General John Love. In 1824 Governor Hendricks made him prosecutor of the extensive Third Circuit, and he served in that position two years. His book tells some very amusing stories of the trials he was concerned in at that time. To this brief sketch of the opening of his professional career it may be well to add here that, after his removal to Indianap- olis, in 1839, he engaged as closely in practice as his du- ties in the national Senate would permit, and that, on the expiration of his senatorial term, in 1843, he never engaged again in politics. As he himself used to say, "he had got tired of beating on a barrel just to hear the noise." His reputation gave him a very large business in the Federal Courts, and in the course of a few years he confined his practice chiefly to them. Then

he and the eloquent Howard and the powerful Marshall stood foremost, and with Judge McLean on the bench an argument in which these giants were contestants was an intellectual treat, and very often crowded the court- room with spectators. He was crowded with business and could not take much that was welcome to less heavily loaded counsel, and about 1850, when he became interested in railroads, he refused nearly all cases in the local courts. At the bar Mr. Smith was noted for the kindness with which he treated the younger mem- bers, and his uniform courtesy to the older ones. He rarely indulged in personalities, and when he did they were usually pleasantries that could not offend the most morbid sensitiveness. He was patient with stupidity, forbearing to ill temper, and never allowed himself to be irritated into a false step or an unsafe statement. His desire to be thought well of by all with whom he associated made him anxious to treat them well. His temper was singularly mild, and his feelings easily affected. One day a woman, evidently of no high character, came to his office with a little boy of three years, and, after a long tale of sorrow and suffering, asked his help. He knew what she was, and declined kindly. As she reached the door on her way out she told the child to "bid the gentleman good-bye." Mr. Smith's face flushed an instant as the child gave him his hand, and he took a quarter out of his pocket and gave it to the boy. When they were out he turned to his students with a little bit of sheepishness in his ex- pression and said: "She knew how to get the money after all." But, gentle and courteous as he was in his intercourse with other members of the bar, he was unsparing in argument, and his vast force of mind and body made him something terrible when fully roused. One who knew him well said of him that he reminded an observer of nothing so much as a huge locomotive with all steam up rushing and roaring on, so suggestive of enormous power, so irresistible, that it seemed like the extreme of temerity to reply to him. His painstak- ing, laborious study of his cases, and his accurate recol- lection of multitudes of precedents, always put him before the court thoroughly prepared, and his sound judgment kept him from resting on any hazardous or uncertain ground. Sometimes, though not often, his case would present a pathetic aspect, and the great crushing giant of the bar would melt to tenderness, carrying every one with him. In a divorce case de- fended by Matthew Hale Smith, his speech contained a description of the primitive purity of Paradise that has few equals in our best belles-lettres. It was published in the Indianapolis Journal some time in 1857. Gen- erally, he was more argumentative than eloquent, and he never troubled himself to use what Thackeray calls the "hoight of foine language." He was plain, direct, powerful, and his eloquence was the effect of force and

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earnestness, and never of study or purpose to be elo- quent. In his political career he was little, if at all, less distinguished than in his professional career. He was elected to the Legislature when the state capital was still at Corydon, Harrison County, and served two sessions (1822 and 1823) there. The following two years were devoted to his duties as prosecutor, and the next year (1826) he was elected to Congress by fifteen hun- dred majority, and was re-elected once. In his first session it became his duty to reply to the celebrated Philip P. Barbour, of Virginia, who had assailed the constitutionality of the appropriations to construct the Cumberland or National Road; and he did it, in spite of the natural timidity incident to his situation as a young man of thirty-two in an encounter with a veteran debater and statesman like Mr. Barbour. The appro- priation was carried. It was by Mr. Smith's efforts during his second term that the National Road passed through Indianapolis. In the direction that the previ- ous surveys were taken it would have gone forty miles south. Mr. Smith introduced and carried a resolution of instruction to survey the line as it was subsequently constructed. On the expiration of his second term he resumed the practice of his profession, never by any means abandoned, but lessened for other duties, with fresh energy, and continued for about six years, until he was elected to the national Senate, over Governor Noble and Governor Hendricks, in 1836. He does not appear, from what he says in his sketches, to have expected this result, and he certainly did not work for it; but he may have considered it among the reasonable chances, for he was as eminent a man as either of his competi- tors, and an abler man than both together. He had just heard of his election when he started to Cincinnati with his annual drove of hogs-he combined farming with his profession, it seems-and actually carried the news with him. He says that when he stopped at his destination in the city, his breeches in his boot-legs, his "leggings" and clothes covered with mud, and his whole appearance indicating any thing but a position that could make him a candidate for a high office, he was asked, "Who has been elected Senator from Indi- ana?" " I have," said he, to the consternation of the querist. They could n't believe it at first. In the Senate he was associated with the greatest men of our political history, and he held his own with the best. He was made chairman of the Committee on Public Lands, one of the most important committees in the Senate at that time, when emigration westward was very heavy and the public lands were an important element both of revenue and material development. He was complimented in the Senate by Mr. Clay for the value of his services to the country in that position, to which, by the way, he was raised over the head of the famous Robert J. Walker, , of Mississippi. In 1842 he was beaten by Edward A.

Hannegan, through the defection of a single Whig member of the House, Daniel Kelso, of Switzerland. The Whigs would have had a bare majority on joint ballot with Kelso; without him neither party had a ma- jority. The Democrats ran the lamented Tilghman A. Howard as their candidate for Governor in 1840, and Mr. Smith was renominated by the Whigs. Several ballots were taken with the same futile result. Mr. Kelso giving his single vote to Hannegan, a Democrat. Finally the Democrats, by Mr. Howard's advice, took up Hannegan, and Kelso's vote gave them the majority they needed. After the close of the term, on the fol- lowing 4th of March, Mr. Smith, as before remarked, abandoned politics altogether, except that he advised with his Whig friends at times, and once, at least, made an effective defense of the tariff, in reply to a pamphlet by James Whitcomb, Democratic candidate for Governor in 1843, called "Facts for the People." With these exceptions he went steadily ahead in his profession, part of the time with his brother-in-law, Mr. Brumfield, as a partner, later (after 1848) with Simon Yandes, Esq. As a political speaker, he exhib- ited much the same qualities and powers of mastery that he did as a forensic speaker, but he was less suc- cessful on the stump, because argument and close rea- soning, which were his mode of dealing with political questions, were not so popular as an anecdotical or declamatory style. But he was always formidable, on whatever subject or before whatever audience. His high character gave greater force to his bare assertion than many a man could get for a statement quoted directly from the record. He could use a good story very effectively both for fun and logic at times, but he was usually too set in his purpose and too much in earnest to play with it, or search in his capacious mem- ory for illustrative incidents. In conversation he was as prolific of anecdotes as Mr. Lincoln, and most of them, like Mr. Lincoln's, were reminiscences of occur- rences in his own experience, and he told them with much the same humor and dramatic effect, but in his political speeches he was usually serious and impressive rather than entertaining. In his eight years' service as a member of one or the other house of Congress, he was, as in his profession, prompt and decisive, persist- ent and laborious, with an instinctive perception of the essential points of the subject he was dealing with, and a capacity rarely equaled for throwing off all that was irrelevant or immaterial, and examining only what con- tained the elements of a decision. But it was neither as a lawyer nor statesman that Mr. Smith exhibited his greatest powers or achieved his highest renown. He stood among the first of both, but he did not stand alone. In the last years of his life he became an author, and certainly no Hoosier author was more widely read or known. He was distinguished in three

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walks of life, of which success in any one is distinction enough for most men. But there was one in which he stood not only foremost, but alone. He was the only man in Indiana, or any other state, who could fairly be said to have been both the "author and finisher" of a great railroad line. The other roads were the combined suggestion and achievement of many interested men, but Mr. Smith conceived and completed the scheme of the Bellefontaine Railroad, now the "Bee-line," and the greatest freight road that enters the railroad city of Indianapolis, before any body else had thought of it, so far as appears from the recollection of those associated with him and the publications and public action in re- gard to it. He had not been a railroad man, nor more closely connected with the public improvements prose- cuted during his public career than many other public men, so that he could have brought to this new enter- prise no special training or tendency of interests in that direction. It was the prevision of native sagacity, the result of sound judgment working into the future from conditions detected by a rare clearness of perception. He saw the incalculable benefit to the whole country, and especially to his own state and city, of a railway connecting the lakes and the great Eastern railroad lines with the Ohio. He saw that, sooner or later, the chief volume of trade between the interior and the sea- coast would run across, and not along, the lines of earlier transportation, and a road tapping a connection with Lake Erie at one end and an Ohio River connection at the other fulfilled all the conditions of an indispen- sable link between the ocean and the national granary of the West. He used to elaborate this idea in his con- versations with clients and visitors in his office. He would attend to all professional business faithfully, but the moment he could lay it aside he would begin on his client with the importance and the infallible profits of a railroad line from Indianapolis to the lake. He was full of it, for, with that as with every thing else, what he did at all he did with all his might. He enlisted the interest of others on the line of his projected road. He drew the charter, and secured its adoption by the Legislature of 1848. It was one of the earliest follow- ing the assured completion of the Madison road. He set Lemuel Frazer to soliciting subscriptions for stock, and, except this work, he did every thing himself for a while. His unaided exertions made it a positive exist- ence. He had a board of directors created, and he made James G. Jordan, the first city clerk of Indianapolis, sec- retary of the board; he being president, and General Thos. A. Morris chief engineer. It was characteristic of Mr. Smith's confidence in his own powers and judg- ment-without which confidence a man must become a mere parasite of other men-that he always spoke of his stock solicitor as the best that he ever saw, and the secretary as an incomparable officer, without whom he

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A biographical history of eminent and self-made men of the state of Indiana : with many portrait-illustrations on steel, engraved expressly for this work, Volume II, Part 15

Author: Publication date: 1880 Publisher: Cincinnati, Ohio : Western Biographical Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 1006

Author:
Publication date: 1880
Publisher: Cincinnati, Ohio : Western Biographical Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 1006