Source: History of Alabama and Dictionary of Alabama Biography, By Thomas McAdory Owen, Marie Bankhead Owen, Published by The S. J. Clarke publishing company, 1921; Submitted by Barb Ziegenmeyer

Source: From Memorial Record of Alabama. By Hannis Taylor, Brant & Fuller, Publishers, Madison,   Wis. 1893. Transcribed and submitted by Veneta McKinney

The death of the mother wrought a great change in the condition of the children. A family named Potts — Mrs. Potts having nursed Mrs. Smith in her last illness — took charge of the children and of their little remaining property. The slaves ran away, the property was speedily dissipated, and the children were temporarily scattered among the neighbors, William remaining with the Potts family. Here, his little property being gone, he was mistreated by Mrs. Potts, deprived of his linen clothing, for which gingham and homespun were substituted, compelled to wait for his meals until the family had finished, and otherwise made to feel his dependent condition. He received severe whippings for trifling childish faults — perhaps the first and only blows he ever had felt. The culmination came when one night he crept out of his attic window and down the sloping roof to the ground, and ran away. After wandering about for two or three days, he was restored to his brother. About this time a cousin came from Kentucky and endeavored to persuade the children to return to the home of their birth; but Sidney, who had then obtained employment, opposed this. Shortly afterward his sister, Louisa, married William A. McDaniel, a tailor, in whose shop the boy was employed. It was not long, however, before it was discovered that the little orphan was an embryo genius; and kind friends of whom he always spoke with affection came forward to assist him, the most generous being General George W. Crabb (to whose memory and achievements Judge Smith paid tribute in his 'Reminiscences,') who advanced the money for his education, which his future law student afterward repaid him. In 1826 or 1827 he entered the school taught by Dr. Reuben Searcy, later one of the most distinguished physicians of West Alabama, and, in 1829, the school of the Rev. Nathaniel H. Harris, M.A., where he spent two years in preparing for college.

The sixteen year-old boy entered the University of Alabama on the opening day in the spring of 1831. Ambitious and diligent, young Smith, ably taught by earnest teachers, and emulating his brilliant fellow students, attained a high standard of scholarship in a thorough course of English, French, classical and scientific studies. Withal he assiduously cultivated the muses, as is attested by the publication of his first book while he was yet a student at the University. This little book of 112 pages, containing sixteen poems, unique in being, probably, the first literary production as such published in Alabama, is entitled 'College Musings, or Twigs from Parnassus,' printed by D. Woodruff at Tuscaloosa, in 1833. It was followed shortly afterward by 'The Bridal Eve,' an Indian romance in verse. Early in 1834, within a few months of graduation, young Smith was compelled, from the necessity of earning a livelihood, to leave the University. He entered the law office of General Crabb, his friend and patron, and so diligently did he pursue his studies that at the end of one year he passed the necessary examination and was  admitted to the Bar. He began practice at Greensboro in 1835, at the age of twenty. He was short of stature — about five feet, five inches in height — but with a sturdy, well-knit frame, capable of great and prolonged endurance, both physical and mental. He had dark brown hair, large eyes of the same color, and a large, expressive mouth, indicative of an affectionate and generous nature, and at the same time of unbending determination. In 1836 his elder brother, Sidney, joining one of the Alabama companies, which were raised for that purpose, went to Texas to aid the fight for Texan independence, and there he was killed in the Goliad massacre of March 27, 1836 — this being William's twenty- first birthday. In the mean time hostilities had broken out with the Creek Nation, and the young lawyer, fired with the military spirit inherited from his soldier ancestors of two wars, and nurtured by his mother's teachings, raised a company of mounted infantry, of which he was elected captain, and proceeded, in the regiment commanded by Colonel Joseph P. Frazier, to the seat of war. But, the Indian War having been just brought to an end, his company was disbanded and he returned home. There he met the news of his brother's death and of the destruction of the whole of Fannin's command by the treachery of Santa Anna; and he immediately set out, visiting several counties, and addressing audiences wherever he could find them, in an endeavor to raise a force to rally to the support of the Texans and to avenge the blood of the American patriots who had been so foully slaughtered at Goliad. The desire to avenge the untimely death of his brother, who had been father and mother to the orphan boy, who shared with him the inheritance of a brilliant mind, and for whom he entertained a passionate affection, must have dominated all other motives for this intended incursion into military fields. The company that he recruited went as far as Mobile, where the news of the battle of San Jacinto, and the subsequent success of the Texans, caused it to disband. Instead of returning home, young Smith remained in Mobile and for a year devoted himself to literature, soon establishing a magazine. This magazine was The Bachelor's Button, a monthly periodical, purely literary in its character, the first number of which was published at Mobile in December, 1836. It had the distinction of being the first periodical of the kind ever published in Alabama. The first four numbers were published in Mobile, but in 1837 Judge Smith returned to Tuscaloosa where the fifth and sixth — the latter the last — numbers were published. This magazine of 1836-1837, to which young Smith was a large contributor, as well as its editor, might well hold a prominent place in our Twentieth Century publications.

Upon the adjournment of the Convention in March, 1861, Judge Smith went home and raised the Sixth Alabama Battalion, which grew into the Twenty-sixth Alabama Regiment, of which he was commissioned Colonel; and at the same time he prepared for publication the 'History and Debates of the Secession Convention,' a work of the very highest value. He went into the camp of instruction; but was almost immediately elected to the Confederate House of Representatives, in which he served from the beginning to the end, in 1865. After the close of the war, he ran for Governor in 1865, but was defeated and entered the political field but once again, namely in 1878, when he was defeated for Congress. He resumed in Tuscaloosa the practice of law, and also devoted himself to literary pursuits, principally the translation into English couplets of parts of Homer's "Iliad." About this time Judge Smith began also the preparation, under a joint resolution of the General Assembly, of a condensation of the Alabama Reports, which were published in ten volumes, the first in 1870, and the tenth in 1879, covering all the reports from Minor to the Eighth Alabama Reports, inclusive. In 1870 he was elected president of the University, and served as such for about a year. The Board of Trustees was composed of Radicals, and it was thought that the election of Judge Smith would win over to the University the support of the people; but the antagonism to them was reflected on him, and seeing that he would be unable, under the existing state of feeling, to build up the institution, he retired.

In 1879 he removed with his family to Washington, where he resided during the remainder of his life, practicing law for several years, but devoting the greater part of his time, even until his death, to literary pursuits. In the early 'eighties he edited and published The Law-Central, to which he contributed a series of exhaustive studies in criminal insanity, including a study of the Guiteau case. In 1889 he published one of his most valuable contributions to the history and literature of Alabama: 'Reminiscences of a Long Life; Historical, Political, Personal, and Literary.' During the succeeding years of his life he prepared a second volume of the same character, but it was never published. In 1890 he published a humorous poem, in rhyming couplets, entitled " Was it a Pistol? A Nut for Lawyers," descriptive of a trial by jury for the carrying of a concealed pistol by an unsophisticated country youth, who was also a ventriloquist. He printed also, for private circulation, a number of poetical pieces, the principal one being  "Polyxena: A Tragedy," based upon the story of that character in the "Iliad." He retained the vigor of his intellect unimpaired to the very day of his death, which occurred in Washington, February 26, 1896, of an acute attack of bronchitis, the funeral services being conducted at the Roman Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist by the Bishop of Mobile. He was a man whose love for his kin never hesitated; whose affection and loyalty to his friends never wavered; a man singularly free from any taint of envy, jealousy, or malice, even toward an enemy; indeed, it seems that it might have been well for him politically had he cherished resentment.

Source: Thomas M Owen, Library of Southern Literature; Submitted by Janice Rice

(Note: Burial next to his mother Tuscaloosa Alabama)