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SMITH, GEREIT. 



required them to live on their lands, not usually 

 u difficult condition. In distributing these lands 

 he had in every case a committee selected of 

 those who resided near his property. A small 

 portion of this land was bestowed on institu- 

 tions of learning and charity, such as the Or- 

 phan Asylum at Oswego, which he founded 

 and maintained, Hamilton College, etc., etc. 

 At a later period (about 1857) he established 

 a farming region in Essex County for colored 

 people, and presented John Brown, of Ossa- 

 watomie, with a farm there, that he might 

 teach the colored men how to till their land in 

 a northern clime. His gifts of land as well as 

 of money were continued through his life, so 

 that at his death he retained scarcely an eighth 

 of his original magnificent estate. But vast as 

 was his property, it did not wholly occupy his 

 time or his strength. By the very constitu- 

 tion of his mind he was a philanthropist and a 

 reformer. His second marriage, which took 

 place about 1824, was to a Miss Fitzhugh, of 

 Maryland, whose father was a slave-holder ; 

 Mrs. Smith survived her husband but two 

 months. By this marriage he was brought 

 into contact and acquaintance with American 

 slavery, and at once he sought some method 

 of ameliorating its evils. At first he believed 

 he had found this in the plans of the Coloniza- 

 tion Society, and as early as 1825 he became, 

 a member of that organization, and in 1826 or 

 1827 one of its officers. He contributed largely 

 to its funds, and for several years hoped for 

 much benefit to the African race from its 

 measures, but he withdrew from it in 1835, 

 and thenceforward identified himself with the 

 voting portion of the antislavery party. To 

 this cause he gave largely, and was known 

 everywhere as the most pronounced, though 

 perhaps the most genial, of its advocates. His 

 attachment to the cause of temperance was 

 hardly less ardent certainly not less perma- 

 nent. He was also a vigorous opponent of the 

 use of tobacco, and published and circulated 

 tracts against it. He was a strong advocate of 

 peace, heartily labored for the emancipation 

 of woman from the legal disabilities which 

 formerly enthralled her, in the holding of 

 property etc., and eventually included suffrage 

 in the catalogue of her rights. He sought 

 most earnestly for reform in the management 

 of prisons and houses of detention, and aided 

 largely in the establishment of juvenile re- 

 formatories. He promoted education, in the 

 public school, the academy, and the college, 

 giving largely both in lands and money to all 

 grades of schools. To Hamilton College, his 

 alma mater, he gave liberal donations of lands, 

 and, on two occasions, $10,000 in money; and 

 to several of the Western institutions nearly as 

 much. To hospitals orphan asylums, homes 

 for the aged and feeble, insane asylums, 

 churches, libraries, etc., his bounty was un- 

 ceasing in its flow, and generous and often mu- 

 nificent in its amount. His charities bestowed 

 during his life were more than eight times the 



amount of property he left at death, and yet 

 his estate was inventoried at over a million 

 dollars. 



As a politician and statesman Mr. Smith's 

 course was for most of his life influenced by 

 his reformatory views, though in early life he 

 was very active as an anti-mason. In 1852 

 many of the voters of Madison and Oswego 

 Counties of both parties united in inviting him 

 to accept a nomination for Congress. The 

 Whigs and Democrats had each nominated a 

 candidate, but Mr. Smith was elected over 

 both. Mr. Smith remained in Congress only 

 through the first or long session, his health 

 being somewhat infirm, and he anxious to re- 

 turn, untrammeled by office, to his labors in 

 the cause of reform. While in Congress he was 

 active, and advocated, almost single-handed, 

 his views on slavery, temperance, homesteads, 

 the reciprocity treaty, and the Nebraska bill. 

 In 1859 his previous intimacy with John 

 Brown, of Ossawatomie, and the fact that he 

 had given him, as he gave to almost all who 

 applied to him, pecuniary aid, led to severe de- 

 nunciations of Mr. Smith as being implicated 

 with Brown in the Harper's Ferry affair. As 

 a matter of fact, though knowing Brown's 

 plans only in part, Mr. Smith had earnestly 

 sought to dissuade him from them, and had 

 never given them his sanction or aid. During 

 the war Mr. Smith rendered good service to 

 the Union by his writings, his eloquence, his 

 personal influence, and his money. During the 

 period of reconstruction he pleaded earnestly 

 for reconciliation, but evinced distrust of the 

 Southern politicians, and was uncompromising 

 in his demands for the civil equality of the 

 colored race. When a young man, Mr. Smith 

 became connected with the Presbyterian 

 Church, and in later years the church in Peter- 

 boro' was greatly dependent upon him. About 

 1850 his views on religious subjects, as he 

 himself phrased it, were "modified, enlarged, 

 and changed." His new belief found form 

 in the religion of Nature, or what he called 

 "Rationalism." Mr. Smith's hospitality at 

 Peterboro' was literally baronial. A score of 

 guests was not unusual at his table, and every 

 room in his house was filled for weeks at a 

 time by persons not connected with him by 

 blood or marriage, a majority of them self-in- 

 vited. The black man and the white were 

 equal guests at his board, and their visits were 

 never shortened or hurried by the generous 

 host. Mr. Smith was a ready and somewhat 

 voluminous writer; but many of his publica- 

 tions, having accomplished an ephemeral pur- 

 pose, have been so thoroughly lost that their 

 titles cannot now be recalled. Of his more 

 important works the following Are the princi- 

 pal : " Speeches in Congress " (1856) ; " Ser- 

 mons and Speeches by Gerrit Smith " (1861) ; 

 " The Theologies " (1866) ; " Nature's Theol- 

 ogy" (1867); "Letter from Gerrit Smith to 

 Albert Barnes" (1868); and a pamphlet on 

 the question of the Bible in schools (1873). 



