Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/589

Rh SMILLIE, James (smi-ly). engraver, b. in Edin- burgh, Scotland, 23 Nov., 1807 ; d. in Poughkeepsie, X. V., 4 !>''(.. 1SS5. He was at first apprenticed to James Johnston, a silver-engraver, after whose death, ten months later, he worked for a time with an engraver of pictures, Edward Mitchel. In 1821 he. came with his family to Canada, settling in Quebec, where his father and eldest brother estab- lished themselves as jewelers. Young Stnillie worked with them for some time as a general en- graver, until Lord Dalhousie, struck with his evi- dent talent, gave him free passage to London and letters of introduction in 1827. This did not prove of much assistance to the young artist, as the Lon- don engravers, regarding him as the governor's protege, asked most exorbitant premiums. Smillie thereupon went to Edinburgh, where he worked for about five months, after which he returned to Quebec. He went in 1829 to N T ew York, where he settled permanently in the following year. His engraving after Robert W. Weir's " Convent Gate " first brought him into notice, and during 1832-'6 he engraved a series of plates, mostly after paint- ings by Weir, for the New York "Mirror." In 1833 he was elected an associate of the National academy, and he became an academician in 1851. From the first his name became connected with the art of bank-note engraving, and he has been called the pioneer in this line. From 1861 till his death his time was devoted to that branch of en- graving. He is best known, however, as a land- scape-engraver, in which branch of art he probably had no equal in this country. Among his more important plates, all executed in the line manner, are " Dream of Arcadia." after Cole, and " Dover Plains," after Asher B. Durand (1850), and " Mount Washington," after John F. Kensett, and " Ameri- can Harvesting," after Jasper F. Cropsey (1851) all engraved for the American art union ; the series " The Voyage of Life," after Thomas Cole (1853-'4), and " The Rocky Mountains," after Albert Bier- stadt (1865-6).' His brother, William Cumming, engraver, b. in Edinburgh. 23 Sept., 1813, emi- grated with his parents to Canada in 1821. He first worked at silver-engraving, but. after coming to New York in 1830, soon turned his attention to bank-note engraving. He was connected as partner with several firms, the last of which, Edmonds, J.ones and Smillie, was eventually absorbed by the American bank-note company. In I860 he estab- lished a bank-note engraving company at Ottawa, Canada, having secured a contract to furnish the Canadian government with all its paper currency, bonds, etc. In 1874 he retired from this business, but eight years later he again established a com- pany in Canada. In this business he is still (1888) engaged. James's son. James David, artist, b. in New York city, 16 Jan., 1833, was educated by his father as an engraver on steel. He produced some excellent work, notably the illustrations for Cooper's novels after Felix O. C. Darley's designs, but his principal work was on bank-note vignettes. In 1864, after his first visit to Europe, he turned his attention to painting, studying without a mas- ter. The same year he first exhibited at the Acad- emy of design,' New York, and was elected an associate of the academy in 18(55, and an academi- cian in 1876. His work in oil includes " The Lift- ing of the Clouds, White Mountains" (1868); " I lark against Day's Golden Death. Catskills " (1870) ; " Evening among the Sierras " (1876) ; " The Adirondacks" and " Up the Hill " (1879) ; and ' The Cliffs of Normandy " (1885). He was one of the original members of the Water-color society, and was its treasurer from 1866 till 1873, and president from 1873 till 1878. Among his water-colors are "The Track of the Torrent. Adirondacks" (1869); "A Scrub Race. California" (1876); "Old Cedars, CoaM of Maine " (1880) : " Stray Lambs, near Mont- rose, Pa." (1884): "Etretal, Coast of France" (1887); and "The Passing Herd" (1888). Mr. Smillie is also well known as an etcher, and was one of the founders of the New York etching club. His pencil has been frequently employed in book illustration, and he is the author as well as illus- trator of the " Yosemite " article in "Picturesque America." Another son, William Main, b. in New York, 23 Nov., 1835 : d. there, 21 Jan.. 1888, was known as an expert letter engraver. He was in the employ of a firm until merged, with seven other companies, into the old American bank-note company in 1857. He remained with the company until it was combined with two others to form the present company, after which he was general mana- ger until his death. Another son, George Henry, artist, b. in New York. 29 Dec., 1840, studied under his father and James M. Hart in 1861-3. In 1871 he visited the Yosemite valley, and in 1884 he went abroad. He was elected an associate of the Na- tional academy in 1864, and an academician in 1882, and is also a member of the Water-color so- ciety. Among his works in oil are "A Lake in the Woods " (1872) ; " A Florida Lagoon " (1875) ; A Goat Pasture " (1879) ; " Merrimack River " ( Iss-J) ; "On the Massachusetts Coast " (1883) ; "Summer Morning on Long Island " (1884) ; and " Light and Shadow along Shore," which is owned by the Union league club, Philadelphia. His water-colors in- clude " Under the Pines of the Yosemite" (1872); " Near Portland, Maine " (1881) ; " Swamp Willows at Newburyport " (1883) ; and " September on the New England Coast" (1885), which gained a prize at the American art association's water-color exhi- bition in 1885. George Henry's wife, Nellie Shel- don Jacobs, artist, b. in New York, 14 Sept., 1854, studied under Joseph 0. Eaton and James D. Smillie. Her works include " Grandmother's Old Love Letters" (1881), and "When the Dew is on the Grass" (1884), in oil ; and "Priscilla" (1880); "Forgotten Strain" (1881); and "Family Choir" (1882), in water-color. She is a member of the Water-color society.

SMITH, Sir Albert James, Canadian statesman, b. in Westmoreland county, New Brunswick, in 1824. He was educated in his native county, studied law. was called to the bar of New Brunswick in 1847, and was afterward appointed queen's counsel. He was a member of the New Brunswick legislature from 1852 till the union of the province with Canada in 1867, when he was elected to the Dominion parliament. He was re-elected by acclamation in 1872, on his appointment to office, and again at the general election in 1878. He was a member of the executive council of New Brunswick from 1856 till 1863 and for a short period in 1866, attorney-general from 1862 till 1863, when he retired from the government and held the same office in his own administration in 1865. He was a delegate to London in 1858 on the subject of the Intercolonial railway, and on public business in 1865, and to Washington with Mr. Gait (now Sir Alexander T. Gait) and others on the subject of re- ciprocal trade, in January, 1866. He declined the chief justiceship of New Brunswick in 1866, the lieutenant-governorship of the same province in, and the post of minister of justice in June, . He became a member of the privy council, and was appointed minister of marine and fisheries, 7 Nov., 1873. He represented the Dominion government before the fisheries commission at Halifax