Smith, Delazon, 1816-1860.

Delazon Smith came to Oregon in 1852, and settled in Linn County. He had political ambitions, served in the Territorial Legislature, and, with Joseph Lane, was first United States Senator from Oregon, elected in 1858.

From the guide to the Delazon Smith letters to William H. Smith of Rochester, NY, 1857-1859, (Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries)

From the guide to the Delazon Smith, Albany, O.T., letter to Aaron E. Wait, September 13, 1855, (Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries)

From the guide to the Delazon Smith letter, September 15, 1855, (Special Collections and University Archives, University of Oregon Libraries)

Delazon Smith was an early Oregon journalist and Democratic politician who served in the Oregon territorial legislature and as one of the state's first two U.S. Senators. He was born on October 5, 1816, in New Berlin, Chenango County, New York, the son of a mechanic. His mother died 1825, and in 1831, at the age of 15, he set out on foot to western New York, where he lived with his brother for three years. In 1834 he began attending Oberlin College in Ohio, one of the centers of the abolitionist movement, to which Smith did not subscribe. This opposition was one of the reasons he left Oberlin in 1837 and made his way to Cleveland, where he began studying law and writing for local newspapers. Also in this year he published Oberlin Unmasked, a criticism of the so-called "underground railroad," which he viewed as an unlawful interference with private property. That same year he married Eliza Volk, with whom he would have one child, a son named Volney Smith.

In 1838, Delazon Smith accepted a position as editor for the New York Watchman, a newspaper in Rochester, a job he would hold for two years. He continued to study law and also canvassed for political campaigns. He started the newspaper The Western Empire in Dayton, Ohio, in 1841, but resigned in 1843 over a disagreement about President John Tyler. The following year Tyler appointed Smith as Special Commissioner of the United States to the Republic of Ecuador. During his tenure the State Department lost contact with him for eleven months, and subsequently he was nicknamed “Tyler’s Lost Commission.”

Upon returning, Smith relocated to Keosauqua, Iowa Territory, in 1846. This same year his wife died, and he began studying for the ministry under Henry Clay Dean, who eventually became the chaplain for the United States Senate. In 1848, Delazon married his second wife, Mary Shepherd, with whom he would have five children, Ianthe, Viola, Lizzie, Delazon Jr., and Delavon.

In 1852, Delazon and his family spent five months in a wagon traveling to Oregon. Once there, he obtained a land claim in Linn County, near Albany, and supported his family as a farmer and a lawyer. He was elected three times to the territorial legislature as a representative of Linn County (1854, 1855, and 1856), and, during his second term, he was elected as Speaker of the House. In 1857, he was chosen as a delegate for the Oregon State Constitutional Convention. The following year, Delazon and his brother in-law, Joseph Shepherd, founded the newspaper The Oregon Democrat

In late 1857 the territorial legislature sent Smith and General Joseph Lane to the U.S. Senate in anticipation of Oregon's admission to the Union. The admission did not come that year and Smith came back to Oregon. In 1858 he returned to Washington, D.C. via San Francisco, Panama and New York City, becoming seriously ill on the way. He oversaw the admittance of Oregon into the Union on February 14, 1859, and took his seat in the Senate along with Joseph Lane. But Smith's term was a short one, since he lost a drawing of straws with Joseph Lane, and served only from February 14 to March 3, 1859, the shortest Oregon senatorial term on record. He then returned to Oregon for what he thought would be an easy campaign to regain his seat. Yet the contest proved a bitter one, and Smith was defeated by Republican Edward Baker on October 1, 1860. On November 18 of that year he died of unknown causes. He was survived by his wife Mary, and six children. After Delazon's death, Mary lived for a time with her family in Keosauqua, Iowa.

Delazon's son Volney enlisted in the Union Army during the Civil War. He was wounded and served as quarter master in various camps in Kentucky and Texas. After the war he lived in Lewisville, Arkansas, where he served as county clerk, published the Red River Post, a Republican and pro-reconstruction paper, and became lieutenant governor of the state.

From the guide to the Delazon Smith family papers, 1848-2004, 1848-1870, (Oregon Historical Society Research Library)