The Historical Writings of Henry A.M. Smith : Articles from the South Carolina Historical (And Genealogical Magazine); Vol. 1, The Baronies of South Carolina
Henry Augustus Middleton Smith was an American jurist and local historian from South Carolina.
Background
He was born on April 30, 1853 in Charleston, South Carolina, United States, was descended through his father, John Julius Pringle Smith, from Robert Smith, 1732-1801, the first Protestant Episcopal bishop of South Carolina, and through his mother, Elizabeth (Middleton), from Thomas, brother of Arthur Middleton, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, whose famous seat, "Middleton Place, " came into Smith's possession. Much of his early childhood was spent at "Beech Hill Plantation. " A schoolboy during the Civil War, he witnessed the chaos that it brought.
Education
After some years in Aiken, he returned to Charleston for his later education, and was graduated from the College of Charleston in 1872. He read law in the office of McCrady & Sons.
Career
He was admitted to the bar in 1874, and for thirty-four years (1877 - 1911).
Although a consistent Democrat and never an office-seeker, in 1911 he was appointed by President Taft judge of the United States court for the Eastern District of South Carolina, in which capacity he served till 1923.
He also wrote creditable verse. Always interested in history, he was an organizer and member of the South Carolina Historical Commission, and for twenty years a vice-president of the South Carolina Historical Society. It is for his contributions in the field of South Carolina history that he is chiefly remembered. A lover of the land, he constituted himself its historian.
His writings might well be called the Domesday Book of the South Carolina tidewater. Beginning with "The Colleton Family in South Carolina" in the first volume of the South Carolina Historical and Genealogical Magazine (October 1900), they concluded with "Goose Creek" in the twenty-ninth volume (October 1928). All were illustrated with maps the author had constructed from ancient plats.
He tended always to independence. Although he was austere and exacting on the bench, and reserved with those whom he had not admitted to intimacy, he possessed a subtle sense of humor and his judgments were mellowed by a secret vein of human sympathy.
Always modest and unassuming, he frequently amazed specialists with his knowledge of widely diverse subjects, for he was an expert accountant, delighted in Italian and other languages, and was widely read in literature, theology, ethnology, anthropology, and Egyptology.
Interests
As a sportsman, he loved the out-of-doors; and as owner of several plantations, he planted successfully both rice and sea-island cotton. He was also a good botanist, and during several years of poor health made a hobby of studying the grasses of the coast.
Connections
On June 24, 1879, he married Emma, daughter of Maj. Arthur Middleton Rutledge of Franklin County. She, with a son, survived him.