Collection #:
SC 1359
CALEB B. SMITH PAPERS
1849–1862
Collection Information
Historical Sketch
Scope and Content Note
Folder and Contents Listing
Cataloging Information
Processed
by:
Ellen Swain
29 June 1992
Updated 1 November 2004
Manuscript and Visual Collections
Department
William Henry Smith Memorial Library
Indiana Historical Society
450 West Ohio Street
Indianapolis, IN 46202-3269
www.indianahistory.org
VOLUME OF COLLECTION: 1 folder
COLLECTION DATES: 1849-1862
PROVENANCE: Walter R. Benjamin, New York, NY,
16 June 1941 (1849 letter, 1941.0603);
King Hostick May 1952 (1856 letter, 1952.0502); Louis J. Bailey, Queens Borough
Public Library, Jamaica,
NY, January 1950 (1861 letter, 1950.0105); The Book Nook, Louisville,
KY, March 1955 (1862 letter, 1955.0302)
RESTRICTIONS: None
COPYRIGHT:
ALTERNATE FORMAT: None
RELATED HOLDINGS: Address by Caleb B. Smith at installation of Morning Star
Lodge, 1840 (Ip 815 S644a); Congressional Speeches assembled by C. Smith,
1839-1844 (I 328.73 U 58c)
ACCESSION NUMBER: 1941.0603, 1952.0502, 1950.0105, 1955.0302
Born in Boston, Massachusetts
on April 16, 1808, Caleb
Blood Smith spent his youth in Cincinnati Ohio,
arriving with his family in 1814. After studying at Miami
University, Oxford,
he came to Connersville, Indiana
in 1827 to enter the law office of Oliver H. Smith. Four years later, Smith
married Elizabeth Walton, the daughter of one of the town's pioneers.
Smith's political career began in 1834 when he won election to the Indiana
House of Representatives. A Whig, Smith was reelected each year until 1837 and
then again in 1840. In 1842, he entered the United States House of
Representatives where he served three consecutive terms. After leaving Congress
in 1848, Smith sat on the board of commissioners to adjust claims against Mexico.
He left that position in 1851 to serve briefly as president of the Cincinnati
and Chicago Railroad Company.
In 1859, Smith, a leader of the Indiana
delegation to the Chicago Republican Convention, fought for Lincoln's
nomination. A personal friendship existed between the two from the time they
were members in Congress. For his efforts in the Lincoln
campaign, Smith was appointed Secretary of the Interior, making him the first
Hoosier to hold a cabinet office. He resigned, however, in December 1862 for
health reasons. Relocated in Indianapolis,
Smith was appointed Judge of the United States Court
for the District of Indiana. Here, he lived out the remainder of his life dying
on January 7, 1864. In his
honor, President Lincoln ordered all government executive buildings in Washington
draped in mourning for fourteen days after his death.
Source:
Indiana Biography Series v. 18
Malone, Dumas, ed. Dictionary of American Biography v. 9
New York: Charles Scribner's
Sons, 1936.
The collection consists of four letters written by Smith in the mid
nineteenth century. The earliest letter, dated July 1849, is a request to
William B. Preston, Secretary of the Navy, to appoint a Hoosier midshipman. A
letter dated September 24, 1856,
is an apology to an unidentified colonel for Smith's absence at various
Republican Indiana meetings. The third letter, written to the Commissioner of
the General Land Office and dated April
20, 1861, is Smith's oath of loyalty to the United States
Government. The final letter, dated October 1862, regards the issue of soldiers
unnecessarily burning trees at Camp Sullivan
in Indianapolis.
FOLDER CONTENTS
1 Correspondence, 1849-1862
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