THE IRRIGATION AGE. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 



Br HARRIET B. SMYTHE 



William Ellsworth Smythe was born in 

 "Worcester. Massachusetts, December 24th, 

 1861, having descended from New England 

 pioneers of the seventeenth century. He 

 ^ras educated in the common schools of his 



work and learned to love the smell of 

 printers' ink. Furthermore, he was fasci- 

 nated with the character and career of 

 Horace Greeley, as set forth in the most 

 entertaining of biographies by James Par- 

 ton. So he promptly chose to do as 

 Greeley had done, and become an appren- 

 tice in a printing office. 



WILLIAM ELLSWOKTH SMYTHE. 



native town. At the age of sixteen his 

 father asked him to choose between prep- 

 aration for a college course and learning a 

 trade. He was already engaged in pub- 

 lishing a small amateur paper called The 

 Yankee, and in writing stories and articles 

 for otber amateur papers. In this way he 

 -had conceived a taste for newspaper 



Thus at sixteen he left home to make 

 his own way, entering the office of the 

 Southbridge Journal, then owned and 

 edited by George M. Whitaker, who is now 

 widely known as the editor of the New 

 England Farmer. In less than a year 

 the young apprentice, who had been using 

 all his spare time in reading history and 



