520 APPENDIX. 



No. VIII.— Page 407. 



The Hon. Thomas Smith. 



My chief knowledge of this collateral ancestor of my own — a half- 

 brother of my great-grandfather, Dr. William Smith, the Provost — is 

 derived from an obituary notice of him in the Uniied States Gazette 

 of April, 1S09. I am not able to say who the author of it was, 

 possibly Mr. Enos Bronson,* long the editor of that paper: a gentleman 

 of talents at once versatile, strong and graceful, with an education 

 various and finished. This gentleman was an acquaintance and friend 

 of Judge Smith, as were almost all that high class of gentlemen, mem- 

 bers of the bar and leading Federalists of Philadelphia, who gave tone 

 to society in our city at that time: Edward Tilghman, William Rawle, 

 William Lewis, Joseph Hopkinson, Charles Willing Hare, Horace Bin- 

 ney, Charles Chauncey, John B. Wallace, William Meredith and others. 

 Mr. Bronson may very well have written it, though a literary friend 

 familiar with his style, as also with that of the late Chief Justice Tilgh- 



* Enos Bronson, as we learn from Mr. Euger.e II. Munday's valuable Historical Sketch 

 of the A^orlh American and United Stales Gazette, was a native of Waterbury, Conn., 

 and born March 31, 1774. He was graduated at Yale College, and afterwards began 

 the study of the law. He did not, however, long continue this pursuit. Removing to 

 Philadelphia, he became a teacher in the Academy of the Protestant Episcopal Church. 

 His tastes were towards literature and political acquisitions, etc. He soon afterwards 

 (a. D. 1801) purchased the Gazette of the United States, succeeding John Ward Fenno 

 in the editorship, and conducting the paper in the interest of Federal politics. About 

 the time of our declaration of war against Great Britain (a d. 1S12), party spirit ran 

 very high. In Baltimore a riot occurred, and the printing office of a Ferleral news- 

 ]iaper was destroyed by a mob. The office of Mr. Bronson was threatened with a 

 similar fate if he did not cease from his unfavorable criticisms upon the administration 

 and its Democratic leaders. Mr. Bronson was not to be intimidated, nor to cease the 

 expression of his just political views at the dictation of ruffians. At last, however, the 

 threats of violence against his office took actual shape. He received intelligence from 

 a good source that on a night fixed the office would be sacked. On that same night 

 the late Nathaniel Chapman, M. D., Charles Chauncey, the Hon. Bird Wilson, John 

 B. Wallace, Horace Binney, Thom.as Biddle, with a few other gentlemen (all intimate 

 friends of Mr. Bronson), Federalists all, of vigorous strength, came to the office of the 

 Gazette with muskets well loaded with ball, bayonets set, and gave evidence of what 

 any b.iiid of ruffi.ans mis.'ht expect. The ringleaders of the mob came and looked; 



