Milton Hannibal Smith

Background

He was born on September 12, 1836 in Windham Township, Greene County, New York, United States. The son of Irulus and Almira (Blakeslee) Smith.

Education

Milton had a meager common-school education.

Career

He went South in 1858 to make his fortune. In 1860 he became an operator for the Southwestern Telegraph Company at Oxford, Mississippi; later the same year he became telegraph operator and assistant agent for the Mississippi Central Railroad at Jackson. In 1861 he was transferred to the superintendent's office at Holly Springs, Mississippi, as telegraph operator and chief clerk. He was drawn into the Civil War in connection with the Federal military railroad service, being stationed successively at Stevenson, Chattanooga, Huntsville, Knoxville, and Atlanta.

After the war (1865) he worked for a time for the Adams Express Company at Louisville and then (1866) as division superintendent of the Alabama & Tennessee River Railroad. Smith's connection with the Louisville & Nashville began in August 1866, when he went to Louisville as the local agent of that road. In 1869 he became general freight agent, and in 1878 he resigned because of a disagreement with his superiors in which his orders had been overruled.

Immediately after his resignation he became assistant to vice-president John King of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and in the following year was made general freight agent. For a short time late in 1881 he was general agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad at New York City.

In 1882, however, he returned to the Louisville & Nashville, to renew an association which was to continue unil his death. His first position upon his return was one created specially for him - that of third vice-president in charge of traffic. On July 6, 1882, he became the chief executive, a position which he retained for approximately forty years, even though the title changed from time to time. At first he was called vice-president; in 1884 he was made president; from 1886 to 1891 he was again titled vice president so that one of the New York officers could be given the higher official rank; from 1891 to 1921 he was again president, except for the period of the World War, during which he was federal manager.

Between 1914 and 1917 he had difficulties with the Interstate Commerce Commission over its investigation of the use of passes and the participation in politics of the Louisville & Nashville. Abuses had certainly existed, but Smith insisted, with earnest conviction, that the commission should not have access to his records and that the railroad's activities were entirely proper.

Smith died of a heart attack in Louisville.

Achievements

• Milton Hannibal Smith spent over half a century in the employ of the Louisville & Nashville Railroad, of which, for almost forty years, he was chief executive. By an immense amount of effective work he converted his road into one of the stronger and more important railroad properties of the country. For his contributions to early American railroad management Smith is listed by the Smithsonian Institutions' John H. White, Jr. , as one of America's most noteworthy railroaders.

Personality

Personally he was rough in appearance, a hard but fair fighter, a hard worker who took almost no recreation, and averse to publicity. He was not one to accept interference kindly.

Connections

Smith had a wife, Annette (Jones) Smith, and two sons and two daughters.

Father:

Irulus Smith

Mother:

Almira (Blakeslee) Smith

Spouse:

Annette (Jones) Smith