Smith family

Manasseh Smith (1748-1823) was a 1775 graduate of Harvard College, a chaplain during the Revolution as well as a lawyer in Wiscasset, Maine. And, importantly, he was also the "progenitor of a race of lawyers": his four sons all practiced law in midcoast Maine and elsewhere, as did many of his grandsons. His son Joseph Emerson Smith (1782-1837; Harvard 1804) was perhaps the most well-known and primarily handled mercantile cases in Boston, spending a great deal of time collecting unpaid bills. He appeared many times in front of the Massachusetts Superior Court, and in 1817, a case he defended, Walter v. Otis, made it all the way to the US Supreme Court where it was defended by Daniel Webster. He was also a major in the Massachusetts Militia, and many items of correspondence allude to his service. Another son, Samuel Emerson Smith (1788-1860; Bowdoin College 1808), was a lawyer in Wiscasset, Maine and later became a circuit judge, as well as serving in the Maine legislature in the 1820s and as Governor of Maine from 1831-1834. The other two sons, Manasseh Smith, Jr. (1779-1822; Harvard 1800) and Edwin Smith (b. 1790; Harvard 1811) also practiced law in Wiscasset. Manasseh Sr. and his wife Hannah Emerson also had four daughters, Lydia R. Smith (1777-1858) and Lucy Smith (1783-1842), who did not marry, Hannah who married Samuel Sevey, and Mary (b. 1776) who married Ivory Hovey. This collection also contains business papers and correspondence from Samuel Emerson Smith's sons, S. Emerson Smith, Jr. (b. 1834), Joseph Emerson Smith II (1835-1881) and Benjamin F. Smith (b. 1842). All were lawyers, S. Emerson practicing in Wiscasset, and Joseph Emerson and Benjamin practicing in Chicago. For more information on the genealogy of the Smith family, please see the incomplete family tree in the front of box 4. This collection also contains the business papers of Dudley Watson Moor (1836-1900) and Edward W. Heath, whose connection to the Smith family is unclear. Moor and Heath apparently dealt in real estate in Maine in the late 19th and early 20th century. They also appear to have been involved in the corporate business of the Somerset and Kennebec Company, which seems to have been a cardboard and box-making factory. There are also papers related to the operation of the Kennebec Fibre Company, a paper mill on the Kennebec River. The collection also includes family papers of the Heath family, dealing with the estate of Edward's father, Wyman Heath, and with Francis E. Heath, Edward's brother and a commanding officer of the 19th Maine Infantry during the Civil War.

From the guide to the Papers, 1782-1907, (Harvard Law School Library, Harvard University)