APPENDIX. 571 



State, and soon after removed from Sunbury to Lancaster, where Judge 

 Yeates resided. 



Under the old Circuit Court system it was customary for most of the 

 distinguished country lawyers to travel over the northern and western 

 parts of the State with the judges, and hence Mr. Smith, in pursuing 

 this practice, soon became associated with such eminent men as Thomas 

 Duncan, David Watts, Charles Plall, John Woods, James Hamilton, 

 and a host of luminaries of the middle bar. Among them Mr. Smith 

 always held a conspicuous station, and his practice was consequently 

 lucrative and extended. The settlement of land titles at that period 

 became of vast importance to the people of the State, and the founda- 

 tion of the law had to be laid with regard to settlement rights, the 

 rights of warrantees, the doctrine of surveys, and the proper construc- 

 tion of lines and corners. In the trials of ejectment cases the learning 

 of the bar was best displayed, and Mr. Smith soon was looked on as an 

 eminent land lawyer. In after years, when called on to revise the old 

 publications of the laws of the State, and under the authority of the 

 Legislature to frame a new compilation of the same (generally known 

 as "Smith's Laws of Pennsylvania"), he gave to the public the result 

 of his knowledge and experience on the subject of land law in the very 

 copious note on that subject which may well be termed a Treatise on 

 the Land Laws of Pennsylvania. In the same work his notes on the 

 Criminal Law of the State are elaborate and instructive to the student 

 and the practitioner. 



Mr. Smith was appointed, on the 27th day of March, 1819, President 

 Judge of the Judicial District composed of the counties of Cumberland, 

 Franklin and Adams, where his official learning and judgment, and his 

 habitual industry rendered him a useful and highly popular Judge. 



On the erection of the District Court of Lancaster City and County, 

 he became the first President Judge, and was duly commissioned April 

 28, 1820, which office he held for some years. He afterwards removed 

 with his family to Baltimore, where he lived a few years, and finally re- 

 moved to Philadelphia, where he spent the last years of his life, and 

 died in that city on March 18, 1S36, aged 71 years. He was buried 

 from his residence. No. 12 Clinton square, in his family vault, in the 

 yard of the Church of the Epiphany. 



