Hezekiah Bradley Smith

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Hezekiah Bradley Smith
The home of Hezekiah Smith and Agnes Gilkerson in Smithville

Hezekiah Bradley Smith (born July 24, 1816 in Bridgewater , Vermont , †  November 3, 1887 in Smithville , New Jersey ) was an American entrepreneur , inventor and politician . Between 1879 and 1881 he represented the state of New Jersey in the US House of Representatives .

biography

Origin and education

Hezekiah Smith was born the youngest of six children in his family. Shortly after he was born, his father bought a farm near Woodstock , where Smith grew up. At 15 he began an apprenticeship as a carpenter , but not only learned the trade, but also acquired skills in sales. In 1845, he and his pregnant girlfriend Eveline English moved to Manchester , New Hampshire , for technical training. After a year he opened his own shop.

family

In 1846, Hezekiah Smith married his girlfriend Eveline in a private ceremony. However, his wife moved back to Woodstock; in the following years the couple lived separately. Smith visited his wife regularly - three more children were born - and gave her financial support.

In 1854 Smith met the 16-year-old milkmaid Agnes Mitilda Gilkerson (1838–1881), who was 23 years younger than him. He first hired the young woman as his secretary, then promoted her training. In 1861, she earned a doctorate in medicine with a major in chemistry from Penn Medical School in Philadelphia . Smith was living in Lowell , Vermont at the time .

Before moving to Smithville with Agnes Gilkerson in 1865, he visited his wife Eveline one last time, gave her a house under her maiden name, and set up an account for her. He asked them to destroy all letters he had written to them and cut all the entries of the wife and children from the family Bible with a penknife to burn them. His wife, now the mother of four children from his marriage to Smith, refused a divorce.

Smith's eldest son, Elton, worked for his father for some time, but was expelled from the house by him for, among other things, insisting on calling him "father".

Smithville

In 1865, Smith bought Shrevesville , New Jersey , a ten-year-old abandoned town of manufacturing and residential buildings, for $ 23,000 . Together with Gilkinson, whom he married in 1865 without being legally divorced from his wife Eveline, he moved to Shrevesville , renamed the place Smithville and set up his HB Smith Machine Company there, where he realized his vision of a modern factory. Among other things, he had the residential buildings for the workers renovated and new ones built, as well as a boarding house in which the workers were fed and could shop; there was also a reading room, a theater and a school. It is said that Smith paid above-average salaries. Daily working hours were limited to nine hours, and the factory closed at noon on Saturdays over the weekend. Women and children under the age of 16 were not employed. Smith also bought more surrounding land and set up a farm, whose products were also supplied to his workers.

Part of the Hotchkiss Bicycle Railroad in the Velorama Museum in Nijmegen

The first few years in Smithville were the first to build the machines Smith had invented for processing wood. He exhibited some of these machines in 1871 at the American Institute of the City of New York , where they received an award, and at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876 . He received his first patent in 1873, which was followed by others in his name. Other patents ran in the names of his employees such as John Saltar, Jr., Joseph J. White, William S. Kelley and James L. Perry, who worked in an "inventory group" until 1910. This group has jointly acquired 20 patents. Six of these were accounted for by Kelley, who was also vice president of the company, and concerned bicycle models that were produced as a new product group in Smithville from 1878. Among them was the successful Star Bicycle , which the marketing savvy Smith used to drive a cyclist down the steps of the Capitol in Washington . A steam-powered tricycle was also constructed in Smithville.

Alfred E. Hotchkiss invented a Bicycle Railroad that ran between Smithville and Mount Holly, where other company workers lived. On this track, the passengers sat on fixed wheels that were moved forward by rails. It was in operation from 1892 to 1898.

In the context of the industrial revolution , Smith recognized the need to turn mere henchmen into skilled craftsmen and mechanics through proper training.

“Now what has the mechanic done? We can scarcely turn our eyes without seeing something that he has done for the benefit of mankind, but when we stop and look at his great inventions, the telegraph, the steam engine, the sewing machine, the reaping and mowing machines, the telescope, the microscope, the printing press, wood working machinery ... and the thousand and one productions of his fertile brain, it seems to me fellow mechanics, that we have no call to feel inferior to professional men. "

- Hezekiah Bradley Smith : National Register of Historic Places, Smithville Historic District, p. 11

“Well what did the mechanic do? We can hardly look around without seeing something that he has done for the good of mankind, but if we stop and look at his great inventions, the telegraph, the steam engine, the sewing machine, the harvesting and mowing machines, the telescope, the microscope, the printing press, woodworking machines ... and the thousand and one products of his fertile brain, it seems to me, mechanic colleagues, that we have no reason to feel inferior to brain workers. "

True to this credo, Smith trained young men to be mechanics in his company. In the 1870 census in Smithville, 16 young men were listed whose occupation was specified as "apprentice mechanics".

Agnes Gilkerson Smith edited New Jersey Mechanic's magazine and successfully sold cosmetics she had developed herself, such as Madam Smith's Celebrated Hair Restorer and Beautifier . She died of cancer in January 1881 at the age of 42; the couple had no children.

After her death, Hezekiah Smith made further extensions and conversions to his residence in Smithville, so he had a winter garden built. He became increasingly eccentric : he began collecting wild animals for a private zoo, trained a moose to pull his carriage and, according to rumors, is said to have gathered a “harem” of young women around him. In 1885 he had a life-size marble statue of Agnes erected in front of his house.

politics

Hezekiah Smith was a member of the Democratic Party . In the congressional elections of 1878 he was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC in the second constituency of New Jersey , where he succeeded John H. Pugh on March 4, 1879 . During the election campaign for a further legislative period, press releases - including interviews with his wife and children - revealed that he had entered into a second marriage without an official divorce. That made him a bigamist legally . Smith publicly denied ever having been married to his wife Eveline and also denied his children. In the elections he was defeated by the Republican J. Hart Brewer , which was probably due to these revelations.

Between 1883 and 1885 Smith was a member of the New Jersey Senate . He died in Mount Holly on November 3, 1887.

After his death

After Eveline Smith died in 1897, Elton Smith came to Smithville to move his father's remains to Woodstock and bury them next to his mother. After there had been violent clashes in the family in the years before Smith's death, Hezekiah Smith had obviously foreseen during his lifetime that an attempt would be made to transfer his body and be buried in an iron coffin, locked with iron cuffs, cemented. Thereupon the son had the marble statue of Agnes Gilkerson destroyed by workers of the company and the individual parts were sunk in the nearby Rancocas Creek . After long disputes over inheritance, Elton Smith took over the company from his father in 1900; his descendants lived in Smithville until 1962.

The site is now a listed Smithville Historic District and is a tourist attraction. In 2006 the house was examined by the South Jersey Ghost Research ; the spirits of Hezekiah Smith, his son Elton, and Agnes Gilkerson are said to circulate there.

Web links

Commons : Smithville Historic District  - Collection of pictures, videos, and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e NJHM - The Iron Grave 1. In: archive.li. January 29, 2013; Archived from the original on January 29, 2013 ; Retrieved August 25, 2017 .
  2. ↑ a b National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Smithville Historic District (PDF file)
  3. ^ Russell Roberts: The New Jersey Handbook. Hunter Publishing, Inc, 2004, ISBN 978-1-58843-400-5 , p. 154 ( limited preview in Google Book Search).
  4. ^ Brief History of Smithville Mansion, Eastampton, New Jersey. In: shrevehistory.com. Retrieved August 25, 2017 .
  5. ^ National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Smithville Historic District. P. 7. (PDF file)
  6. ^ A b Historic Smithville Park and Smith's Woods - Burlington County, NJ - Official Website. In: co.burlington.nj.us. March 11, 2011, accessed August 25, 2017 .
  7. ^ Sune Portin: HB Smith Steam Tricycle - Bicycle Technology and Patents. In: bicyclepatents.com. July 23, 2007, accessed August 27, 2017 .
  8. ^ Building a Model 'Industrial Village' in Smithville. In: The History Girl. Retrieved August 26, 2017 .
  9. ^ National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Smithville Historic District. P. 11. (PDF file)
  10. ^ National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Smithville Historic District. P. 11 and 12. (PDF file)
  11. ^ National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Smithville Historic District. P. 15. (PDF file)
  12. ↑ Smash the sign of a man's folly. In: Chicago Tribune. May 28, 1997. Retrieved August 26, 2017 .
  13. ^ National Register of Historic Places Registration Form, Smithville Historic District. P. 17. (PDF file)
  14. ^ Brian Resnick: Long-Dead Bigamist Congressman Still Haunts South Jersey. In: theatlantic.com. October 31, 2014, accessed August 27, 2017 .
  15. ↑ Jessica Remo: The South Jersey Ghost Research Teams Answers When New Jersey Homeowners Get Spooked-www. In: njmonthly.com. February 20, 2015, accessed August 27, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Smith, Hezekiah Bradley
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American politician
DATE OF BIRTH July 24, 1816
PLACE OF BIRTH Bridgewater , Vermont
DATE OF DEATH November 3, 1887
Place of death Smithville , New Jersey