Truman Smith papers

Truman Smith was born on November 27, 1791 to Phineas Smith and Deborah Ann Judson in Roxbury, Connecticut. He was the nephew of US Senator Nathan Smith and US Representative Nathaniel Smith. Smith graduated from Yale in 1815 and then studied at Litchfield Law School. In 1818 he was admitted to the Litchfield Bar and then began practicing law. He married his first wife Maria Cook on June 2, 1832. Truman and Maria had a son and one or two daughters. Maria died in April 1849. On November 7, 1850, he married his second wife Mary Ann Dickinson. Truman and Mary had six sons. Truman Smith's daughter Jeannie Penniman was the second wife of U.S. Senator Orville Hitchcock Platt.

Truman Smith was elected to the Connecticut State legislature in 1831-1832 and 1834. In 1838 he was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a member of the Whig Party and served until 1843. Representative Smith served again in the United States Congress from 1845 to 1849. Smith in 1847 organized and was de-facto leader of a Whig national committee dedicated to organizing, fundraising, and managing General Zachary Taylor's campaign for president. In 1848, Truman Smith along with Alexander H. Stephens (Georgia), Robert Toombs (Georgia), Abraham Lincoln (Illinois), William Ballard Preston (Virginia), Thomas Flournoy (Virginia), and John S. Pendleton (Virginia) formed a pro-Zachary Taylor club referred to as "the Young Indians." The group of Congressmen early in the 1848 presidential campaign backed Taylor. At the June 1848 Whig nominating convention Smith played a pivotal role in the nomination of Zachary Taylor. On the third ballot the Connecticut delegation, having been instructed to vote for Henry Clay, led by Truman Smith along with two other delegates voted for Taylor out of six total delegates. The change in vote on the third ballot led other Whig Party delegates to change their vote on the fourth ballot. After the fourth ballot Zachary Taylor was nominated as the Whig Party's candidate for president.

On March 3, 1849 Representative Smith resigned from the United States House of Representatives and was elected to the United States Senate on March 4, 1849. Truman Smith, after working on getting Taylor elected, turned down a cabinet post in President Taylor's administration as the first Secretary of the Interior. Senator Smith resigned from the United States Senate on May 24, 1854. Several reasons are stated in various sources for Smith retiring from the US Senate including for financial reasons and his disgust over passage of the Nebraska-Kansas Act. He returned to practicing law by opening an office in New York but had few noteworthy court cases.

In July 1862, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Truman Smith to the Court of Arbitration in New York, established by a treaty with Great Britain, which was tasked with bringing to trial suspected American and British vessels engaged in the slave trade. In 1870 Congress terminated the Court of Arbitration and he returned back to private law practice. In 1873 he was the successful counsel for the defense in the US Supreme Court case New York Central Railroad v. Charles C. Lockwood in which the railroad argued it was not negligent for injuries sustained to Charles Lockwood during the transport of cattle from Buffalo to Albany, New York. Lockwood had signed an agreement with the railroad taking responsibility for any injury to him or the cattle in exchange for a free ticket. The court ruled for Smith's client, Charles Lockwood, finding the company was negligent and could not exempt itself from being liable for workers injured on the job. After the court case he retired from practicing law but remained active in local, state, and national politics. Truman Smith died in Stamford, Fairfield County, Connecticut on May 3, 1884.

Genealogy

Truman and Maria (Cook) Smith were married June 2, 1832 and according to several sources had at least one son and one or two daughters. The one daughter known of by Truman and Maria Smith was Jeannie Penniman Smith who was born in 1835 and married George Hoyt. Jeannie became a widow and in 1897 would marry US Senator Orville Hitchcock Platt who had lost his first wife Annie Bull in 1893.

Truman and Mary (Dickinson) Smith were married on November 7, 1850 and according to several sources had six sons. The sources consulted only provided the names of three sons: Truman H., Edmund D., and Robert Smith. Edmund D. Smith was born on September 25, 1857 in Stamford Connecticut to Truman and Mary Smith. Edmund graduated from West Point on June 13, 1879. Edmund married Mary Burkett Dewing on June 28, 1892. Edmund and Mary Burkett Dewing Smith had two children: Truman and Charlotte. Captain Edmund Dickinson Smith was killed in action on Cebu Island, Philippines during the Spanish American War on February 4, 1900. Truman Smith, the son of Edmund and Mary, was born on August 25, 1893 at West Point, New York. Truman graduated from Yale University in 1915 with a Bachelor of Arts degree and served in the United States Military from 1916 to 1948. Truman Smith married Katherine Alling Hollister on July 14, 1917 at Greenport, Long Island. Katharine Truman Smith Coley is the daughter of Truman and Katherine Alling (Hollister) Smith.