Background
He was born on February 2, 1846 at Richmond, Wisconsin, United States, the son of Henry G. and Charlotte (Paul) Smith, who had moved to Wisconsin from Rochester, New York, in 1842.
He was born on February 2, 1846 at Richmond, Wisconsin, United States, the son of Henry G. and Charlotte (Paul) Smith, who had moved to Wisconsin from Rochester, New York, in 1842.
He attended Milton Academy (later College) at Milton, Wisconsin.
He remained on his father's farm until 1867, when with a few hundred dollars he went West and for about five years followed mining camps from Montana to Idaho, and then to Nevada and California.
In 1872, while cutting timber for mines at Columbus, Nevada, he and his partner, William Tell Coleman, discovered in Teel's Marsh the mineral (colemanite) from which borax is derived. These mines soon became and for many years remained the world's chief source of borax. The partners organized the Pacific Coast Borax Company. By greatly reducing the price they made borax a household staple. Later Smith acquired colemanite deposits in Death Valley, Cal. From there the product was hauled by mules 164 miles to Mojave, California, and the "twenty-muleteam" became a familiar borax trade-mark.
In 1910 he settled in Oakland, California. There, investing his great profits in public utilities. In his new activities, however, he soon met financial disaster, and the $20, 000, 000 fortune that he had accumulated rapidly disappeared. Owing to his crude financial methods and reckless borrowing on short-time notes, he became involved in extended litigation that ended in his bankruptcy.
Between 1921 and 1925 he strove, with only partial success, to recoup his fortunes through the acquisition of a newly discovered deposit of colemanite in Clark County, Nev.
He also became a political storm center in Oakland and Berkeley through his attempts to acquire rights upon the waterfronts of those cities. For some years he was a trustee of Mills College in Oakland. He founded a magazine, the Blue Mule, edited by H. A. Laffler, which flourished for a time.
In politics he was a Republican, and served as a presidential elector in 1904 and 1908. He was believed to be on the way to new wealth at the time of his death in Oakland.
He married Mary R. Thompson of New Jersey in 1875, and in 1901 established in her name the Mary R. Smith Trust to maintain a home for Friendless Girls in Oakland; she died on December 31, 1905. They had no children of their own but had adopted several. Two years later, January 23, 1907, he married Evelyn K. Ellis of Oakland, by whom he had one son and three daughters.