Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1900, volume 5).djvu/602

568 moved to Philadelphia, where he remained until the beginning of April. 1870. He then suddenly expressed a determination to give up engraving, disused of all his effects, left the city, and noth- ing has since been heard of him. During the last year nf his residence in Philadelphia he essayed etching in the style of Henry B. Hall, and pro- duced ten plates in this manner, his last being a portrait of James L. Claghorn, president of the Pennsylvania academy of the fine arts.

SMITH, Isaac, patriot, b. in Trenton. X. J.. in 17:!C>: d. there, 29 Aug., 1807. He was graduated at Princeton in 1755, was a tutor there, studied medicine, and subsequently practised that profes- sion, and early espoused the patriot cause, com- manding a regiment in 1776. He was judge of the supreme court of New Jersey from 1783 till 1801, served in congress in 1795-'7, and in the latter year was appointed by President Washington to treat with the Seneca Indians. At the time of his death he was president of the Bank of Trenton.

SMITH, Isaac Townsend, consul-general, b. in Boston, Mass., 12 March, 1813. He was edu- cated at the Latin and the English high-schools in Boston, and at Capt. Alden Partridge's military academy at Middletown, Conn. He entered com- mercial life, and as supercargo made several voy- ages to the East Indies, China, Manila, Singapore, Java, and Africa. Then he settled in New York, where as a merchant and ship-owner he conducted business for several years. He was an incorpora- tor and for many years president of the Metropoli- tan savings-bank, and was a commissioner of emi- gration for the state of New York for several years. Mr. Smith was a presidential elector at the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1804. and is Siamese con- sul-general for the United States. He has been a oniriliutor to the "Magazine of American His- tory " and other periodicals.

SMITH, Israel, senator, b. in Suffield. Conn., 4 April, 1759; d. in Rutland, Vt., 2 Dec., 1810. He was graduated at Yale in 1781, and settled as a lawyer in Rupert, Vt.,but removed afterward to Rut land. He wasa boundary commissioner in 1789, and took an active part in the admission of Ver- mont into the Union. He was a delegate to the convention that adopted the Federal constitution in 17H1. a member of congress from that year till IT'.i;. li.-ning been chosen as a Democrat, and was U. S. senator from 1803 till 1807, when he resigned to 1 1. -come governor of Vermont. In 1809 he was a presidential elector.

SMITH, James, signer of the Declaration of Independence, ti. in Ireland about 1720 ; d. in York, Pa.. II July, 1806. The date of his birth is un- 'iTtain, for he nevertold it. His father emigrated with his family to this country in 1729, and en- gaged in farming on Susquehanna river. James va> educated at the College of Philadelphia, studied law, and settled first in Shippensburg as a lawyer and surveyor, and afterward in York, Pa., where for many years he was the sole practitioner at the bar. During this period of his life he was as widely known for his humorous stories, his wit, and con- viviality as for his learning and success in prac- tice, his drollery being heightened by an awkward- ness of gesture, a ludicrous cast of countenance, and a drawling utterance. He also successfully engaged in extensive iron-manufactures on C'odo- rus creek, and at the beginning of the Revolution possessed considerable property. In 1774 he raised the first volunteer company in the state for the purpose of resisting Great Britain, and was a mem- ber of the convention to consider the expediency of abstaining from importing any goods from England, and also of assembling a general congress. At this meeting he was one of a committee of three to prepare instructions for the representatives, and these instructions, together with Smith's essay " On the Constitu- tional Power of Great Britain over the Col- onies in America." gave the first strung impulse to the patriot cause in that region. He was a member of the Pennsylvania convention in Janu- ary, 1776, and of the provincial conference that assembled on 18 June of the same year to form a new gov- ernment for Pennsyl- vania, and seconded the resolution that was offered by Dr. Benjamin Rush in favor of a declaration of independence. This, hav- ing been unanimously adopted, was signed by the members, and presented to congress a few days lie- fore the Declaration. On the day of the adoption of the resolution, Smith was appointed, with Col. John Bayard and others, to organize a volunteer camp of Pennsylvania militia for the protection of Philadelphia. He was a member of the con- vention of 15 July, 1776, that assembled in Phila- delphia for the purpose of forming a new constitu- tion for the state, and on the 20th of the same month was elected to congress, remaining in that body till 1778. In 1779 he served in the general assembly of Pennsylvania. In 1780 he was commissioned judge of the high court of appeals. In 1782 he was ap- pointed brigadier-general of Pennsylvania militia. He was appointed a counsellor on the part of Penn- sylvania in the controversy between that state and Connecticut in 1784, and in the following year was chosen to congress in the place of Matthew Clark- son, who had resigned, but his advanced age com- pelled him to decline a re-election. After the peace, having lost his fortune during the war, he resumed t be practice of his profession, in which he continued till 1801. He was the personal and political friend of Washington and an ardent Federalist.

SMITH, James, pioneer, b. in Franklin county, Pa., in 1737 ;d. in Washington county, Ky., in 1812. He was captured by the Indians when he was eighteen years of age, and adopted into one of their tribes, but escaped in 1759. was a leader of the "black boys" in 1763-'5, and a lieutenant in Gen. Henry Bouquet's expedition against the Ohio Indians' in 1764. He was one of an exploring party into Kentucky in 1766, settled in Westmoreland county in 1768, and during Lord Dunmore's war was captain of a ranging company, and in 1775 major of the Associated battalion of Westmoreland county. He served in the Pennsylvania convention in 1776, and in the assembly in 1776-'7. In the latter year he commanded a scouting party in the Jerseys, and in 1777 was commissioned colonel in command on the frontiers, doing good service in frustrating the marauds of the Indians, lie .-el I led in Cane Ridge, near Paris, Ky., in 1788, was a member of the Danville convention, and represented Bourbon county for many years in the legislature. He published two tracts entitled " Shakerism Developed" and "Shakerism Detected," "Remarkable Adventures in the Life and Travels of Col. James Smith " (Lexington, 1799; edited by Will-