Morris Chronicle, Morris, NY, September 26, 1877
Marriages
Sept. 18: At the house of the bride's parents in Morris [Otsego Co. NY], by Rev. J.S. Southworth, Mr. Alfred Patrick, of Pittsfield [Otsego Co. NY], to Miss Deborah Pope of Morris.
Sept. 19: At Morris [Otsego Co. NY], at the house of the bride's father, by Rev. A.E. Daniels, Mr. Charles Daniels to Miss Hattie Davis.
Deaths
Sept. 15: In Waukesha, Wis. Mrs. Jabez Winton, sister of A.H. & Cephas Tillson of Morris [Otsego Co. NY], aged 73 years.
Sept. 19: At his residence in Edmeston [Otsego Co. NY] of typhoid pneumonia, Walter B. Southworth in the 52d year of his age.
A kind and obliging neighbor, a faithful friend, and an affectionate brother has passed to his reward in heaven. How well it may be said of him "an honest man is the noblest work of God."
Sept. 19: In Morris [Otsego Co. NY], after a long illness, Mrs. C.M. Brooks.
Sept. 16: In Preston, Chenango County [NY] Asahel Pendell in the 78th year of his age, brother of Mrs. Royal Potter of this village [Morris, Otsego Co. NY].
Sept. 18: In Butternuts [Otsego Co. NY] Anthony Hollis.
Hon. J.K, Lull of this village [Morris, Otsego Co. NY], received news from Kansas last week that his son, Dr. J.K. Lull had died on Thursday, Sept. 18, and was buried the Sunday following. Dr. Lull was a native of this town, where he had many acquaintances. He was about 42 years of age.
Oneonta Herald & Democrat, Oneonta, NY, September 28, 1877
Marriage
In Otego [Otsego Co. NY], at the home of the bride, Sept. 20th(?), by the Rev. D. Bundy, D.W. Studwell(?) of Stamford, Conn., and Allie A. [French], daughter of Morrell French. At the marriage, the bride and groom were supported by Mr. and Mrs. Norton of Oneonta.
News Item
An Oneonta Boy
A good many of our older citizens will recollect a boy named Henry N. Smith, son of Henry Smith, who was born in the house where A.S. Miles Now lives [in 1877] and left here when about five years old. He is remembered by persons we have spoken to as a remarkably bright boy and at the early age he left here, evinced a great desire to become wealthy and useful. He is both now. His wealth, like all Wall St. operators is sometimes great and again meagre. But Mr. Smith is in possession of valuable property that he cannot well lose unless by exceedingly bad management. He is a very benevolent man and has a wife that never tires of prudently distributing to charity. Mr. Smith is a nephew of Mr. P.C. Burton. His father now lives in Tioga, Pa. We find the following sketch of Henry N. Smith in the New york Sun, of the 19th inst. It cannot fail to interest all our readers:
Like the majority of successful Americans, Mr. Smith is a self-made man. He was born in Oneonta, Otsego County, N.Y., some forty years ago. On his mother's side he is half Scotch, half Yankee; On his fathers, entirely a New Englander. It is probably to this quarter of Scotch blood that he owes his stubbornness, while the Yankee blood gave him his smartness.
The parents of Smith were poor, but they took good care of their children and managed to send Henry to school, first at Knoxville, Pa., and subsequently at Alfred Centre, Pa., to which state the family had removed. When his education was considered complete, his father took him as a clerk into his store at Tioga. Shop life in so obscure a place was not to the taste of the enterprising boy. From his earliest days, stock speculation had been the subject of his dreams.
In the spring of 1858, the young clerk was already well known to the business community of Buffalo and made up his mind to start on his own hook. His capital consisted of $143; his office was in his hat; the article he set out to trade in was Canada money. Two years later he had accumulated capital of $2,000, borrowed another $3,000, and opened a regular broker's office in Seneca Street. He was no long a boy, but a man of 24 or 25. He must not be classed, therefore with those mushroom celebrities of Wall Street who make a fortune when they are scarcely 20 years old. This sort of "smart" men usually get broken by 30 and have to take to the hundred share begging business towards 40.
Smith is quite a different speculator. From '58 to '65 he worked hard and progressed slowly, but surely. The issue of paper currency during the war and the high premium on gold made his Canada money business exceptionally lucrative and enabled him to realize a capital sufficiently large for ventures in a new field. He resolved to leave Buffalo and came to New York, where his name had by this time become widely and favorably known in banking circles. He went into partnership with a stockbroker of the name of Martin and two years later, on becoming connected with Jay Gould, reorganized the concern under the name of Smith, Gould & Martin. The new firm existed for three years and did an immense business. It is supposed that, on its liquidation in August 1870, Smith retired with nearly $1,000,000.
The amount of money which Smith made during and after his partnership with Jay Gould seems to have been almost fabulous. But the panic of '73 came on and dealt him a heavy blow. To fail or even to become seriously embarrassed was, with the means he had and the caution he always exercised, out of the question, but he lost a large portion of his fortune. I am unable to tell whether he has since recovered his losses. One thing is certain, and that is that his influence and popularity in Wall Street are a great as ever, and that his fortune is still very large. His Fashion Stud Farm alone could be made the source of wealth for a dozen men. Its last catalogue comprised nearly sixty trotters of all ages, including Goldsmith Maid, for which he paid $35,000 and the stallions Jay Gould ($35,000), Gen. Knox ($10,000) and Tattler ($17,000). If we add to this his house, 547 Fifth avenue, with its magnificent contents of works of art and the large capital engaged in Wall Street, we shall find that the former Buffalo Street broker must be still worth far above a million of dollars. The well-remembered sale of his pictures some months ago cleared some $70,000. Yet, Mr. Smith sold only such of them as he did not care to keep any longer.
It is a standing rule with Wall Street men to begin to patronize art, horse racing and yachting, as soon as they begin to make money. Yet with Smith, all this was not a matter of fashion, but of natural taste. About yachting he does not seem to care much. He built some years ago his America, the finest steam yacht ever launched in this country, but the Government having offered him $200,000, he soon got rid of her. With horses and pictures the case was different. He had a fancy for them from his earliest youth. He bought a suckling colt with the first $25 he ever saved. he did not know what to do with the animal, but he felt he must have it.
It was the same with pictures. He began to buy them as soon as he had a little money to spare. He never had time to make a regular study of art, but he developed his natural taste by buying pictures, looking at them, and talking about them. He is, therefore, a self-made connoisseur, but a very good one and in everything he buys for the embellishment of his home one cannot fail or recognize a man of fine eye and cultivated taste. And what is perhaps still more to his credit, is that he does not buy them to make a show of them. The enjoyment which he, his wife, and his four children derive, seems to be his only object. He does not even make his horses take part in the races, with the single exception of Goldsmith Maid, which has brought him about four times the amount he paid for her.
"When she finishes her career, I shall give up the racetrack altogether" said he recently, taking of his Trenton establishment. "As long as my stud farm remains self-supporting and gives me the enjoyment I derive from it at little or no expense, I shall be perfectly satisfied."
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Obituary - Henry Norman Smith
New York Times, March 14, 1901
Henry N. Smith, a former partner of Jay Gould, died on Tuesday in a sanitarium at Stamford, Conn. For the past year he had been in bad health, having had two strokes of paralysis. Mr. Smith was for a long time a prominent operator in Wall Street, and his name was connected conspicuously with the events of the famous Black Friday. He was also an enthusiastic turfman, and was the owner of the once champion trotter, Goldsmith Maid. Among the many other horses he owned at one time or another were Jay Gould, Gen. Knox, Lady Thorne and Lucy. In 1878 his breeding farm at Trenton, in which place he also made his home, was a rival of the best similar establishments of Kentucky and the West.
Some years ago, a lawsuit was brought against Mr. Smith by a New York firm of brokers with whom he had done business in the Street, and after a judgment of something over $900,000 was rendered against him, an effort was made to levy an execution on the breeding farm and other property he owned around Trenton. The case was finally compromised.
Mr. Smith's body will be taken to Trenton today and the funeral services will be held there at once. The interment will be in Albany, N.Y.
Of late years Mr. Smith had not been in the city very often. When he used to come here regularly, he stayed at the Manhattan Club. He was a member of the Liederkranz and the American Geographical Society.
A Noted Character Dead
Oneonta Daily Star, Oneonta, NY, March 15, 1901
The death of Henry N. Smith is reported in the New York papers of yesterday. The interest Oneonteans may take in the event arises from a statement that he was born in Oneonta, in a house that stood on grounds near to the Windsor hotel, on Chestnut Street. His father was a shoemaker in this place between 1830 and 1840. The demise of H.N. Smith occurred at a sanitarium at Stamford, Conn. and he was buried at Trenton, N.J. on Wednesday. The funeral being held at Fashion Stud farm, which he owned.
Mr. Smith in his day was one of the "great bears' of Wall Street, New York, and was a member of the firm of Smith, Gould & Martin. These men were the ones who brought about the corner in gold which resulted in the memorable crash of Balck Friday, in 1869. It was the belief in the Street at the time that H.N. Smith was the executive head that engineered the great scheme which resulted in such financial disaster. Mr. Smith's wealth at that time was estimated as high as $5,000,000. He lost much of his money, however, in the panics of 1872 and 1873, and though he recovered somewhat from his losses, he was compelled in 1878 to sell a $50,000 collection of paintings. In 1885 he failed utterly, dragging down with him the house of William Heath & Company. His obligations to the Heath firm were upwards of a million dollars.
Relative to the firm of Smith, Gould & Martin the World of yesterday prints the following:
"An old friend of Smith told today an incident, never before published, which illustrates the magnitude of the Firm's operations. One day the bank at which they dealt gave notice at noon, in much alarm, that the firm's account was overdrawn $12,000,000. the bank was notified that the shortage would be rectified. When 8 o'clock arrived, the firm had a balance of $6,000.000 in the bank.
"Smith seemed to sway the minds of his associates by some magnetic power. His facility in borrowing money and obtaining the almost unlimited credit necessary to carry on his gigantic operations was for years a source of wonder of Wall Street men. He was a friend and co-worker of Boss Tweed and helped him in many of his operations in Wall Street.
"On one occasion in the late '60s, Smith withdrew all his money from the Tenth National bank, $4,100,000, and took it home in a cab. He kept the money locked up at home for several days. Meantime Tweed and all the men in the enterprise tied up $20,000,000 in all, thus causing a stringent money market and gaining tremendous profits on loans."
As far back as 1868, Mr. Smith was known as one of the prominent patrons of the trotting turf. He organized a stable which contained some of the fastest horses in the country. With Bud Doble as his trainer and driver he met with great success and established a breeding farm at the Old Fashion racecourse for running horses near Trenton. There were 145 acres in this farm and when Mr. Smith bought it, he named it the Fashion Stud farm. Here he brought together the most remarkable group of trotters that had ever been assembled for breeding purposes, among the mares being Goldsmith Maid, 2:14; Lady Thorn, 2:18 1/4; Lucy, 2:18 1/4; Lady Maud 2:18 1/4; and Rosalind, 2.2. He also had there the stallions Jay Gould, 2:2 1/3; General know, 2:31 1/2; and Tatler, 2:26.
After his failure, Mr. Smith gave his entire attention to the farm, selling his colts annually in New York. As recently as 1896 it was said of him that as a breeder he stood at the head of all American horsemen. He bred thirteen trotters, having records of 2:15 or better as compared with eighteen bred by the late Leland Stanford, who had 500 horses against Mr. Smith's 100. A few years ago, all of the horses remaining at the Fashion Farm were sold at auction in this city, by order of the court. The old stallion, Jay Gould, then about 30 years of age, was knocked down at $59. Mr. Smith with Jim Fisk, Jay Gould and George C. Hall as his partners, paid $35,000 for him in 1871. John H. Shults bought Stranger, the son of Goldsmith Maid and later sold him to go to Australia where he won many laurels, as did his son, Col. Kuset.
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