Background
William was born on October 8, 1697 at Newport-Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom, the eldest son of Thomas and Susanna (Odell) Smith. His father, a tallow chandler, brought his family to New York in 1715.
William was born on October 8, 1697 at Newport-Pagnell, Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom, the eldest son of Thomas and Susanna (Odell) Smith. His father, a tallow chandler, brought his family to New York in 1715.
Smith entered Yale College. He was graduated in 1719 and received the master's degree three years later, distinguishing himself as a scholar in Hebrew, classical languages, and theology.
From October 1722 to April 1724 he served as a tutor at Yale. Though admitted to the bar in 1724, Smith soon supplemented his colonial legal training by attendance at the Inns of Court, being admitted to Gray's Inn in 1727.
On his return to America, he established a lucrative practice in New York City and attained considerable eminence at the bar, identifying himself throughout his career with the radical Presbyterian faction in provincial litigation and politics. The most noted cases with which he was associated were those in which he sought to curb the governor's prerogative. In 1733, in conjunction with James Alexander, he was retained by Rip Van Dam to defend the action for a division of the emoluments of office brought by Gov. William Cosby before the judges of the supreme court sitting on the equity side of the exchequer. Smith at once proceeded to attack the legality of the court, and was sustained by Chief Justice Lewis Morris, Justices James De Lancey and Philipse dissenting. Action was blocked; no decision on Cosby's claim was reached, but the efforts of the opposition to get rid of the court of exchequer continued unabated.
On the strength of petitions from Queens and Westchester counties that courts might be established only by statute, William Smith and Joseph Murray, an eminent legal contemporary, were called before the Assembly in 1734 to argue the question of the legality of that court as established by the prerogative. Smith's learned plea, that both English and colonial courts rested upon statutory authority seems, at least on the colonial side, the more convincing, although Sir John Randolph, who agreed with Smith, was quick to point out that both parties had fallen into a common error in regard to the extension of British statutes to the plantations.
In the feud between the Cosby and Morris factions, Smith was one of the stalwarts of the latter group and was associated with the founding of Peter Zenger's opposition paper, the New York Weekly Journal. It was thus only natural that in 1735 Smith, joined with Alexander, should appear in the supreme court to defend Zenger in his trial for seditious libel. Both attorneys at once attacked the validity of the appointment of De Lancey and Philipse as judges on the ground that their commissions were granted during pleasure and contrary to legal precedent. For this they were disbarred; but they countered with a petition to the Assembly stating their grievances, which they followed up by personal pleas before the committee of the Assembly. Two years later the decree against them was set aside by the court and they were readmitted to practice.
Smith continued his fight against the prerogative party, and, in 1737, in the election dispute between Garret Van Horne and Adolph Philipse, challenged the latter's seating on the ground that Jews had been permitted to vote for him, whereas, he claimed, history and theology denied them the franchise.
He was appointed attorney-general in 1751 and served one year, but was not confirmed by the royal authorities. He was a member of the Provincial Council from 1753 to 1767, and as such attended the Albany Congress in 1754, being one of the members of the committee that formulated the plan of union, which he strongly advocated. In this same year he served as commissioner in the boundary controversy between New York and Massachusetts.
He declined the office of chief justice of New York in 1760, but became an associate justice of the supreme court in 1763, and held office until his death.
He was foremost among the proponents of a non-sectarian education.
Smith was twice married: first, May 11, 1727, to Mary, daughter of Rene and Blanche (Du Bois) Het, by whom he had fifteen children, including William, 1728-1793, and Joshua Hett, whose career became tangled in the skein of Benedict Arnold's treason; and secondly to Elizabeth (Scott) Williams, widow of the Rev. Elisha Williams, fourth rector of Yale College, and daughter of the Rev. Thomas Scott of Nithern, Herefordshire, England. By this second marriage there was no issue.
