Background
Smith, son of Norman and Elizabeth (Kingsbury) Smith, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, November 6, 1806.
Smith, son of Norman and Elizabeth (Kingsbury) Smith, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, November 6, 1806.
He graduated from Yale College in 1826. He then entered the Yale Divinity School, and completed his course of preparation for the ministry at Andover Theological Seminary in 1831.
He represented Missisquoi in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada from 1844 to 1847 as a Conservative. On his return to Lower Canada in 1823, he studied law with Benjamin Beaubien and Samuel Gale. Smith was called to the Lower Canada bar in 1828 and set up practice in Montreal.
He was named to a commission created by Governor Charles Bagot in 1841 to review the seigneurial system. The commission's report recommended that the system be abolished. Smith became a Queen's Counsel in 1844.
Also in 1844, he was named to the Executive Council as attorney general for Lower Canada. In 1847, he was named a judge in the Court of Queen's Bench. He was named to the Superior Court for Montreal district in 1849.
In 1854, he was appointed to the Seigneurial Court created to deal with the abolition of the seigneurial system. Smith retired in August 1868 and died several months later in Montreal at the age of 62.
He had been usefully occupied during much of his residence in Unionville in supplying vacant churches in the neighborhood, and had served for one year (1867) as a member of the Connecticut State Legislature.