SMITH, HON. HARVEY H
For at least thirty years, Harvey H.
Smith's activities in
the law and in democratic politics, have been
increasingly valuable and
influential. He has been successively identified
with the states
of Kentucky, South Dakota and Oklahoma. Mr. Smith
is
particularly well known as a man of affairs in Shawnee,
where he has
lived since a few months before statehood.
He is not disinclined to credit his worthy
ancestors with
some responsibility for his own success in life.
Mr. Smith's
parents were M. and Mary E. (Smith) Smith. His
parents, though of
the same name, were not related. On the paternal
side, the
ancestors came from England to Virginia and
Pennsylvania, in colonial
times. Mr. Smith of Shawnee and the late Hopkinson
Smith, the
brilliant author-artist, and Senator Hoke Smith of
Georgia, have a
common ancestry in the early annals of America.
The maternal
ancestry of Mr. Smith is even more notable. They
likewise came
from England in colonial times and settled first in
North Carolina and
later Virginia, and from there went across the mountains
as pioneers to
the Kentucky region long before the Revolution.
Major James Smith
and two brothers, departed for the Kentucky Territory in
1752, even
before Daniel Boone made his exploits famous in that
region.
Major James Smith served with that rank and title during
the Indian
Wars, and was a military instructor at one time in the
old St. Mary's
College of Virginia. His writings were the first
papers to be
preserved by the Filson Club of Louisville, R. Club
which has collected
and preserved the most interesting and valuable archives
of the
Kentucky region. Mr. Smith's great-grandfather on
the maternal
side was Captain William Smith, and he was known as the
founder of the
Universalist Church in Kentucky and was a pioneer
physician there, and
gained his rank of Captain by service in the Indian
wars. Major
James Smith had a grand-nephew, Z.F. Smith, who was a
Presbyterian
minister and superintendent of public instruction in
Kentucky and wrote
a standard history of that state. Z.F. Smith died
in 1904.
Senator Smith of North Carolina is a descendant from the
same stock.
Harvey H Smith of Shawnee was born at Vine
Grove in Hardin
Co, Kentucky, October 17, 1809. His father, M.
Smith, was born in
Roanoke, Virginia in 1835, but in early life went to
Hardin County,
Kentucky, where he was reared and married, and became
well known as a
farmer and banker. He spent practically all his
life in Hardin
County and died in 1905 while on a visit at Armour,
South Dakota.
He was a loyal democrat. During the war between
the states, he
served under two of the most brilliant Confederate
leaders, John Morgan
and General Forrest. The mother, whose maiden name
was Mary E
Smith, was born in Hardin County, Kentucky, and is still
living at Vine
Grove in that state. Her children were: Maggie,
who is the wife
of Henry Ditto, a farmer and stock man at Vine Grove,
Kentucky;
Rebecca, wife of G.E. McMurtry, who is president of
Farmers National
Bank at Vine Grove, Kentucky; Harvey H.; and Silas H.,
who is a lawyer,
is now connected with the Interstate Commerce Commission
and resides at
Washington.
Educated in the common schools of Hardin
County Kentucky,
Harvey H Smith graduated from high school in 1884, spent
a year and
half in the National Normal University at Lebanon Ohio,
one year in the
Normal School at Glasgow, Kentucky, one year in the
Springfield
Institute at Springfield, Tennessee, and followed that
with two years
in the University of Indiana at Bloomington, leaving
that institution
when in his senior year.
Mr. Smith began the study of law at
Lexington Kentucky in
the winter of 1887 under W. C. Breckenridge, one of
Kentucky's most
prominent attorneys. He then entered the
Louisville Law School at
Louisville, and finished both the junior and senior
courses in one
year. On examination by the Court of Appeal in
April 1889, he was
admitted and soon afterwards went to the Southwest and
spent one year
in practice at Dallas, Texas. After that for eight
years Mr Smith
was a lawyer at Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and was in 1890
was elected a
member of the constitutional convention which drew up
the present
organic law for the State of Kentucky. In 1891 he
was appointed
by Governor John Young Brown as secretary of the
Statutory
Commission. While still living in Kentucky in 1894
he was
candidate for the democratic nomination for Congress,
and was defeated
by A.B. Montgomery. It may perhaps be stated as
significant that
Mr. Montgomery was defeated at the election by the
republican
candidate, although the district was normally 5,000
democratic.
In 1896 Mr Smith removed to Sioux Falls
South Dakota, and
was engaged in the practice of law in that city until
1902. In
that time he served as temporary chairman of the South
Dakota
Democratic Convention in 1900 and was both temporary and
permanent
chairman of the state democratic convention of that
state in 1902. In
1900, he refused the democratic nomination for
governor. From
1902 to 1906, he was engaged in practice at Armour South
Dakota.
While at Armour he established the First National Bank
and was its vice
president, and also established the Farmers &
Merchants Bank at
Geddes, of which he was director. his business
interests for many
years have been of wide scope. While in South
Dakota, he
established and was proprietor of the Runningmead Stock
Farm, which
came in for more local fame as a center for fine stock.
It was in February 1907, Mr Smith came to
Oklahoma and has
since had his home at Shawnee. His work as a
lawyer
connects him with some of the very important litigation
in both civil
and criminal law, and he has well furnished offices in
the Mammoth
Building. In Oklahoma also he has been called upon
for public
service. In 1912 he was elected to the State
Legislature, and in
the following session was candidate for speaker of the
House, being
defeated by J.H. Maxey. In 1914 he was candidate
for democratic
nomination for Congress, and was defeated by Hon.
William H. Murray,
the veteran Oklahoma politician, but only by 343 votes.
Mr. Smith is a member of the Pottawatomie
County Bar
Association, is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias
Lodge at
Elizabethtown Kentucky, with the Benevolent and
Protective Order of
Elks and the Knights of the Maccabees at Sioux Falls,
South
Dakota. At Anderson Indiana, in 1897, he married
Miss Nellie
Ozias, daughter of William Ozias, who is a physician and
surgeon, now
living at Elizabethtown Kentucky. Mr. Smith and
wife are the
parents of two children; Mary Arlene, a senior in the
high school at
Shawnee; and Virginia Marion, a freshman in high school.
["A
Standard History of Oklahoma", 1916, by Joseph
Bradfield Thoburn -
Transcribed by Cathy Ritter.]
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