News Of Long Ago - "James Clinch Smith, Lost On The Titanic"

News of Long Ago by Bradley Harris, Smithtown Historian 

(April 15, 2012 is the 100^th anniversary of the day that the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic. This article deals with the story of James Clinch Smith, the son of the Judge John Lawrence Smith who was lost on the Titanic that fateful day one hundred years ago. In last month’s article, I traced the story of James Clinch Smith’s childhood and upbringing, followed his career as a lawyer, and wrote about his marriage in 1895 to a beautiful young heiress from Chicago named Bertha Barnes. This article tells the rest of the story of James Clinch Smith’s life and death.)    

“James Clinch Smith, lost on the Titanic…”

In June of 1895, James Clinch Smith and Bertha Barnes were married at a lavish wedding in Grace Church in Chicago.  2,500 people attended the wedding including most of Chicago’s leading citizens.  Following a reception that was held at the Barnes’ home, the happy couple was off on their honeymoon. 

The couple spent part of their honeymoon in New York City, then came out to the Homestead in Smithtown, and then went on to Newport and Europe.  When they returned from Europe, they settled into married life at the Homestead.  James was happy back in familiar surroundings with his sisters all around him.  He wanted nothing more than to again pursue his love of sports, horse-racing, sailing, polo matches, riding to the hounds – he wanted to do it all.  He was quite content in Smithtown but Bertha didn’t like the cultural wasteland of Smithtown.  She wanted to recapture all the fun and frivolity that she had enjoyed as a wealthy young debutante in Chicago.  Bertha hated winters in Smithtown and the Smiths started spending time with friends in Aiken, South Carolina.

In 1898, they built a house in Aiken where they could stay for the fall and winter.  In 1900, they purchased a house in Newport where they spent their summers.  Then in 1901, they began construction of a new home in Meadow Brook – a mansion that took three years to complete.  The mansion had 31 rooms with 14 bedrooms and seven bathrooms, all done in white and gold.  Stables were built to house Smith’s polo ponies and riding horses and it even contained an indoor riding track.  When the house was finished in 1903, James Clinch Smith moved in, richly furnished the house, and anxiously awaited Bertha’s return from Europe.  Bertha had gotten ill on a visit to her mother in Chicago, and “for a cure” she spent the summer of 1903 recuperating at a spa in Germany.  She returned to New York in the fall of 1903 and joined James in their new mansion at Meadow Brook.  But one winter in Meadow Brook and she decided she didn’t want to live in America.

So in the spring of 1904, James Clinch acceded to Bertha’s wishes, sold all his horses, carriages, saddles and harness, and announced that he and his wife were moving to Europe.  The Smiths rented their new mansion to a friend and sailed to Europe where they settled in Paris.  They bought a house at 4 Villa Said just off the Champs D’Elysee.  Here Mr. and Mrs. James Clinch Smith were often seen “riding smart mounts in the boulevards.”  James continued to pursue his interest in horses and riding while Bertha renewed her interest in music and composing.  It was at this time that Bertha organized a “music club of American girls in Paris” and began gathering musicians to form an orchestra of women.  Bertha composed the music and directed the orchestra which created quite a stir in Paris.  On December 17, 1905, in the rooms of Chez Brentanos at the Washington Palace, 14 Rue Magellan, the “Orchestra de Dames” performed an evening concert for the benefit of a retirement home for French artists.  The concert was well received and reported around the world, and Bertha’s “music madness,” which James Clinch heartily disliked, began to lead to tension in their marriage.

The Smiths were in Paris in the fall of 1905 when their mansion in Meadow Brook burned to the ground on Thanksgiving night.  All that remained of their beautiful new mansion was one brick chimney.  This calamity only compounded difficulties between James and Bertha.  James wanted to return to Long Island, while Bertha wanted to remain in Paris until her “Orchestra de Dames” performed on December 17^th.  Following the concert, in January of 1906, the Smiths returned to their home in Smithtown Branch to see what they could salvage of their mansion in Meadow Brook.  But after a short stay, Bertha who was determined to return to Paris and her women’s orchestra, left Smithtown Branch and went back to Paris.  James Clinch Smith remained in New York City.  James was involved in a legal battle over serving as an executor of an estate and had to resolve the issue before returning to Europe.  

He was still in New York City six months later, on June 25^th, when he was invited to attend the opening night of a new musical, “Mamzelle Champagne,” at the rooftop theater of Madison Square Garden.  By a perverse twist of fate, James Clinch was sitting just behind his brother-in-law, Stanford White, watching the show, when Harry Thaw appeared and shot Stanford White at point blank range killing him instantly.  As an eye-witness to the murder, James Clinch was called to appear at Harry Thaw’s trial for murder and had to remain through the lengthy proceedings.  Eventually, after almost a year had passed, James returned to Paris to be with Bertha.  By this time, Bertha was deeply committed to writing, composing, and directing her own musical compositions, and several waltzes she created were popular throughout France.  James tried everything he could to get Bertha to give up her music madness, but was unsuccessful.  

By 1911, James Clinch had had enough of the life Bertha wished to lead in Paris and he decided to return to Smithtown.  He left Bertha in Paris and returned to his family’s homestead in Smithtown Branch.  He had been away for ten years.  In a news story that appeared in the Brooklyn Eagle, on June 18, 1911, James Clinch Smith expressed his desire “to spend the season quietly at his fine old ancestral home, and at the same time to keep keenly alive to everything that” was “going on in the world of sports.”  He had no intention of rebuilding the mansion in Meadow Brook and wanted to make the old place in Smithtown Branch “his permanent summer home, and there will gather the finest stable of polo ponies, hunters and show horses that will be found anywhere on Long Island.”  The article stated that Mr. Smith intended to “take his place as a leader in the town, which his ancestors settled and for whom it is named.”  (“Society Man Returns to Old Homestead,” Brooklyn Eagle, June 18, 1911.)       

James Clinch Smith quickly made his presence felt in Smithtown Branch.  “For the first time in many years,” there was “life and gayety” at the Smith family homestead.  James Clinch became involved in organizing “the Smithtown Polo Club, and two afternoons a week,” he was “seen playing polo on the field used by the Smithtown Horse Show.”  They were preparing for matches with other Long Island teams that were officially recognized by the United States Polo Association.  “Meadow Brook, Piping Rock, Great Neck, Islip and Rockaway” all had been officially recognized as polo clubs when the Smithtown Polo Club applied for official recognition in 1912.  Unfortunately James Clinch Smith didn’t live to see this recognition conferred on the polo club he had helped to create.

In January of 1912, James Clinch received a letter from his wife asking him to return to Paris since she had become ill with pleurisy.  (It was later discovered that she had tuberculosis.)  James sailed for Paris on January 24, 1912.  After rejoining his wife in Paris, he convinced Bertha to return to the States with him and booked passage for the return trip on the Titanic.  At the last minute, Bertha decided to stay in Paris letting James sail ahead so that he could prepare the homestead in Smithtown Branch for her arrival.  

On the evening of April 10, 1912, James Clinch Smith boarded the Titanic at Cherbourg, France for the trip home.  Two days later, on April 15, 1912, the voyage came to a tragic end when the Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in the frigidly cold waters of the North Atlantic.  1517 passengers drowned that night, James Clinch Smith among them.  

That may seem like the end of the story, but it’s not, because we actually know how James Clinch Smith died that night.  His friend and traveling companion, Colonel Archibald Gracie, who survived the disaster, was with James Clinch Smith as the ship slid beneath the waves and he wrote about that night in a book entitled The Truth About the Titanic that was published in 1913.  It happens that Colonel Gracie and James Clinch Smith were table companions on the voyage.  According to Colonel Gracie, James Clinch Smith was with him “from the beginning of the voyage until the end of it.”  Here is Colonel Gracie’s account of what happened to James Clinch Smith:   

“On the night of the terrible disaster when I came upon the deck after having been aroused from my slumbers, I met Smith, and we made an agreement to stick to each other through thick and thin.  We first realized the gravity of the situation while we were still on a lower deck when we noticed the list the ship gave toward the port side.  We took up our station on the port side of the boat deck, at the bow end, near where women and children were being loaded into one of the boats.  Here, without any seeming fear whatsoever, Smith stood and he and I helped lift women and children and babies over the rail as each boat was loaded and then lowered.  Toward the last, when the list of the vessel became such that Second Officer Lightoller ordered all passengers to the starboard side, Smith at once obeyed and I followed. Here he calmly took in all that was being done by the crew in an attempt to launch a collapsible canvas boat that had been slid down from the hurricane deck, and he and I helped. Before the boat could be launched, the water was upon us.”

“When Smith and I saw that there was little chance of getting the boat and that it would be overcrowded, when we heard and saw the water rise to the boat deck, we decided to move toward the stern.  Still on the starboard side, but our progress was blocked by a mass of humanity, which suddenly appeared from the decks below and consisted of second class or steerage passengers.”

“Behind us the water approached rapidly, and we entered a cull de sac to which the only outlet was the bridge deck above.  Smith tried to reach it by jumping and so did I, but the height was too great for us.  The water was now upon us and just as it struck I rose with a jump at the same time, and was carried high up, when I grasped the brass railing around the bridge deck and held on with might and main.”  “Then I looked hastily to the right and left, but Smith was gone.  I never saw him again.  Undoubtedly he was engulfed by the waters and went down with the ship.”

“Words fail to express the feelings of admiration which I have for his conduct, and the highest tribute I could pay him is this plain recital of what he did in the way of self-sacrifice, knowing no such word as fear in saving the lives of others.”  “His relatives and friends should be proud of him and his record in this terrible disaster.”  (New York Sun, April 25, 1912.)

His body was never recovered and the Titanic became his burial tomb. A memorial service for James Clinch Smith was held at the St. James Episcopal Church on May 11, 1912.  Bertha came to the memorial service and to settle her husband’s estate.  Upon James’ death, Bertha inherited the mansion in Newport, the Paris residence on the Champs D’Elysee, as well as the residue of James’ estate valued at $837,776.47.  One newspaper account estimated the residue to be $493,337.  It didn’t take Bertha long to settle the estate and then she returned to Paris to live with her parents.  By the fall of 1912, Bertha’s “illness” had become much worse and she went to a sanitarium in Leysin, Switzerland to be treated for tuberculosis.  She died there in August 19, 1913.  It was said that the real cause of her death was “a broken heart.” Bertha was buried with her family in Graceland cemetery in Chicago.     

News Of Long Ago - "James Clinch Smith Inherits the Homestead Of Judge John Lawrence Smith..."

 News of Long Ago by Bradley Harris, Smithtown Historian

(Last week’s article was about Judge John Lawrence Smith’s residence in Smithtown Branch and the alterations he made in the old Blydenburgh homestead after purchasing it in 1850.  He transformed a large colonial home into an impressive residence that was worthy of the Surrogate Judge of Suffolk County and a Smith family patriarch. This article focuses on the Judge’s family and on James Clinch Smith, the heir who inherited the property when the Judge died in 1889.)    

“James Clinch Smith inherits the Homestead of Judge John Lawrence Smith….”

James Clinch Smith was the sixth child of Judge John Lawrence Smith and his wife Sarah Nicoll (Clinch) Smith.  James was born in the Smith family Homestead on Middle Country Road in Smithtown Branch on April 3^rd, 1856.  When he was born, James already had five older siblings – four sisters and a brother.  Following his birth, the Smiths had five more children – four more girls and another boy.  That meant that James was right in the middle of a very large family, a position that must have been very comforting.

Although the Smiths had a total of eleven children, they lost two of their babies, Alexander Townley Stewart and Anne Alexandrine, shortly after their birth.  Bessie, their tenth child remembers growing up in the house on Middle Country Road with eight brothers and sisters.  Bessie, tells us in her Memories that her “father and mother and nine children used to sit around the old mahogany dining-room table” in the Homestead.   Since Bessie was the youngest, she “always had the high chair” which had been built especially for Bessie, and she “sat at the left” of her mother.  “My sisters and brothers were – Nellie, Louise, Larry, Kate, May, Jim, Ella, Charlotte and myself.”  (Bessie Springs Smith White, Memories, written May 1926, original manuscript on file in the Smithtown Historical Society archives.)  When Bessie was two and a half years old, her sister Charlotte died at the age of six.  And when she was five, her sister May died from Spinal Meningitis.  That left seven children, five girls and two boys. 

Still the Homestead, big as it is, was always full of children.  In Memories Bessie writes that as a little girl, she used to sleep with her sister Charlotte, and then when Charlotte died, she slept with Ella in a trundle bed that “was covered up and rolled underneath ‘Nannie’s’ bed during the day.”  So the Smith girls shared rooms and no doubt the Smith boys, James and Lawrence, doubled up in another room of the Homestead.  There were other people living in the house as well.  Bessie mentions an “old Scotch nurse, Cecilia Thompson,” an Irish cook named “Lizzie Rowan, and an old darkie servant, Mary, who did all the rest of the work in the house.”  According to Bessie, “Mary was a descendant of one of the old slaves and of course her name was Smith. She had come to our door one winter’s night with her babies in her arms, saying she had been turned out in the snow – of course my mother ‘took her in’ and they occupied the ‘darkie quarters’ – three rooms at the farm end of the house.”  Mary was a devoted servant “and brought us all up – and we took care of her until she died at the age of 98.”  So the Homestead must have always been a busy, crowded home.  (Bessie Springs Smith White, Memories, op. cit.)

Bessie remembers attending school in the “district school,” the little old one-room schoolhouse, the Walt Whitman School, that now sits on Singer Lane.  “Jim, Ella, and I were treated just like all the other girls and boys of the village were – used to have our knuckles rapped with a ruler when we were inattentive, and we had to take our turn at sweeping out and dusting the school room ‘after hours.’  When James turned 14 in 1870, his father decided to send him away to “General Russell’s Military School in New Haven.”  This decision may have been triggered by what happened to his older brother Lawrence in April of 1870. (Bessie Springs Smith, Memories, op. cit.)

Lawrence was enrolled as a cadet at West Point in the Class of 1873.  Bessie remembered “there was great rejoicing when Larry came home, at intervals, in his lovely blue-gray uniform and gold buttons.  He used to carry me all over the farm on his shoulder.”  Lawrence was on his way home from West Point in the spring of 1870 when he became ill with dysentery.  His illness progressed so rapidly that he died on the way to his grandfather’s home in New York City.  Lawrence’s sudden death must have been a terrible shock.  James was now the Judge’s only surviving son, the Judge’s heir, and the Judge wanted to have him follow in his brother’s footsteps.  With Lawrence’s death, James was now surrounded by women – three older sisters who bossed him around, and two younger sisters who idolized their older brother. This was the nurturing environment in the Homestead when James broke free and left home for private school.  (Bessie Springs Smith White, Memories, op. cit.)

James went to military school.  Two years later he attended the Anthon Grammar School in New York, and after that he enrolled in the Columbia School of Mines.  Perhaps he toyed with the idea of becoming an engineer.  But at some point he decided to become a lawyer, because in 1878, at the age of 22, “he graduated from Columbia Law School.”  For a few years he practiced law with his father in Smithtown and then he became a partner in the firm of Smith and Keene with an office in the old A.T. Stewart building at Broadway and Chambers Street in New York City.

    In 1888, as a young man of 32, James Clinch Smith made an interesting investment – he purchased the St. James Driving Park, a fifty-acre parcel of land with a one mile race track on the northwest corner of Edgewood Avenue and Fifty Acre Road.  Apparently his position as a partner in the law firm of Smith and Keene gave him the wherewithal, the $6,500 that he paid in 1888, when he purchased the property.  After purchasing the property, he leased the property to Robert L. Davis, a professional driver and trainer who managed a track in Port Jefferson.  Davis immediately made some improvements to the property, built a new barn and training stables, and restored the one-mile racing track.  He reopened the track for trotting races in the summer of 1889 and immediately began to attract horse-racing enthusiasts.

This property was an interesting investment for a young lawyer living in New York City to make at this time in his life.  James Clinch Smith was just beginning his career, just getting started in life, and he couldn’t have had a lot of money when he purchased the park.  So why did he purchase this driving park?  James Clinch Smith loved horses and he loved to race them.  He was an avid sportsman and owning the driving park ensured that he would have a place to race his horses.  Apparently he owned two fast running horses – Melody and Wild Cat – that he stabled with Mr. Davis at the track and he would race them on the one-mile track whenever he came out to visit his parents at the Homestead.

Although he didn’t have much money in 1888, his financial status rapidly changed when his father died at 73 in March of 1889.  James Clinch inherited his father’s home and 250 acres of land on Middle Country Road in Smithtown Branch.  A year later in April of 1890, his mother died, and her estate that included the millions of dollars she inherited from Alexander Turney Stewart’s widow, was left to James and his five sisters.  Suddenly at the age of 33, James Clinch Smith was a very wealthy man who never had to work another day in his life, and he became one of New York’s most eligible bachelors.  He was invited everywhere – summer visits to Newport, sailing on yachts, polo matches, horse races, hunting parties, and social affairs at the homes of New York’s leading families.  

The Homestead in Smithtown was still his home but became the center of a hunting and horse-racing crowd of which James Clinch Smith was the acknowledged leader.  James owned the finest stable of polo ponies, the fleetest running horses and trotters, and owned the finest racetrack in Suffolk County.  He now had the time and the money to pursue his interest in sports.  Since he loved horses and enjoyed competing, he was constantly participating in races, horse shows, and polo matches.  It was said that he had the largest collection of silver trophies in the State and that he displayed many of them in the billiard room of the Homestead.  He became a popular member of New York and Newport society and was one of Mrs. Astor’s privileged 400.  He was invited to join a number of prominent New York Clubs of the day and became a member of the Metropolitan, Country, Michaux, Meadow Brook, Hunt, Calumet, Riding, Union, New York Yacht, Larchmont, Seawhanaka, and Corinthian Clubs.

With his active social life, it wasn’t long before a beautiful young heiress from Chicago, named Bertha Ludington Barnes, snagged James Clinch Smith.  Not surprisingly, Bertha and James met while riding bicycles on an outing with the Michaux Bicycle Club of New York. James and his sister Bessie joined this fashionable club in 1894, a club that included the Astors and Vanderbilts in its ranks.  When Bertha and James met, James was 39 and he was smitten by the young 24 year old beauty from Chicago.  Bertha was described by one reporter as being tall and stately, fair, with a wealth of light brown hair, and she was very “chic.”  She was said to be an excellent linguist and a gifted musician.  She swept him off his feet because two months later they were engaged, and in June of 1895, they were married at a lavish wedding at Grace Church in Chicago, attended by 2,500 people including most of Chicago’s leading citizens.  The reception was held at the Barnes’ home, although I don’t think 2,500 people were invited, and then the happy couple was off on their honeymoon.

More about Bertha and James Clinch Smith next month….  

Smithtown Author Jeb Ladouceur Introduces "The Dealer" At Book Revue

AUTHOR TO INTRODUCE “THE DEALER” AT BOOK REVUE

Smithtown writer’s latest novel features action and intrigue in Las Vegas

Publicist Debbie Lange Fifer has announced that local author Jeb Ladouceur will launch his eighth novel this month in Huntington. The Smithtown resident typically introduces his thrillers at the famed Book Revue, one of the nation’s ten largest independent bookstores, said Ms. Fifer, and true to form, he is scheduled to conduct a book signing there on Thursday evening, October 17^, at 7:30 p.m.

In Ladouceur’s newest suspense offering, THE DEALER, Israeli extortionists threaten to destroy Hoover Dam … and demolish the famed Las Vegas Strip in the process, unless casino operators pay millions. The 357-page novel is the Smithtown resident’s latest spellbinder, all of which are set in different locales across the country … from New Orleans to San Francisco, and New York to Idaho.

Says celebrity biographer Richard Grudens of St. James, “What I think is especially fascinating in this story, is the fact that only a young Blackjack dealer finds himself in a position to thwart the ingenious scheme hatched by the antagonists.” Grudens adds, “We can’t help but wonder, has THE DEALER discovered the conspiracy in time to foil it? This is typical Jeb Ladouceur storytelling—always gripping—always unpredictable.”

Mystery/Suspense/Romance writer Charlene Knadle of Dix Hills has a similar view of Ladouceur’s latest page-turner. “Isn’t it just like Jeb to take us on a plane trip from Tel-Aviv, to New Jersey, then on to Las Vegas … only to resolve his absorbing narrative in the forbidding Mojave Desert!”

Ladouceur’s eighth thriller:Action & intrigue in Las Vegas

Since his retirement from journalism in 2001, Ladouceur has produced seven other novels in the thriller genre. They are: ‘The Palindrome Plot’ – ‘Calamity Hook’ – ‘Frisco’ – ‘The Banana Belt’ – ‘Sparrowbush’ – ‘The Oba Project’ – and ‘Mark of the Zodiac.’ The works are widely available because most Long Island libraries stock all of Mr. Ladouceur’s books, and many libraries have hosted him at “Meet the Author” events where the novels were featured.

Local author, Jeb Ladouceur, signs copies of his acclaimed novel “Sparrowbush” at

Huntington’s Book Revue in Nov. 2010

A 1959 graduate of St. John’s University in New York, where he majored in English Literature, the prolific author has made any number of reading and signing appearances at commercial book outlets in the metropolitan area. Locally, he has been a featured speaker on multiple occasions at the aforementioned Huntington Book Revue, the former Borders Book Stores, Baby Grand Books in upstate Warwick, NY, The Open Book in Westhampton Beach, and other notable venues.

The widely traveled author has also discussed his novels on ‘The Joe Bartlett Show’ (WOR New York), ‘The Larry Davidson Radio Show’ (WGBB in Freeport, NY), ‘Vic Latino’s Neighborhood’ (Party 105. Ronkonkoma), WRIV in Riverhead, and other Long Island radio and television stations including LTV in East Hampton where he was featured on “The Writer’s Dream” moderated by Long Island author Dina Santorelli.

Mr. Ladouceur has lectured at Hofstra University, addressed the Suffolk County Ethical Culture Society, and has been a guest speaker at meetings of the Smithtown Book Club (founded in 1937), the Smithtown Township Arts Council, and several other diverse Long Island organizations. He has been nominated three times for BOLI awards as “Long Island’s Best Author.”

The popular writer is a retired member of the Long Island Authors Group and the exclusive Smithtown Writers Workshop. He was also chosen to deliver the Keynote Address at the annual Smithtown Library Foundation awards banquet in December, 2009. Speaking at the re-dedication of the renovated Smithtown library, a component of the tenth largest such system in New York State and the largest on Long Island, Ladouceur said, “Inclusion of my books in our library’s four branches has been one of the most rewarding aspects of my writing career.” Smithtown’s favorite novelist went on to add, “There are few things more gratifying than searching for your books on library shelves … only to find that most of them are out on loan!”

THE DEALER will soon be available for purchase online and at local bookstores. The widely heralded novel will also be offered for lending to Long Island library patrons by mid-October. Contact the author at jebladouceur@aol.com

 

News Of Long Ago - "Judge John Lawrence Smith's Daughters Tie The Matrimonial Knot"

News of Long Ago by Bradley Harris, Smithtown Historian

(Last week I wrote about the five daughters of Judge John Lawrence Smith and the relationship they had with their father as children and young adults. This article takes a look at the lives of the five women and their choice of marriage mates as they left the Judge’s homestead and created homesteads of their own.)

“Judge John Lawrence Smith’s daughters tie the matrimonial knot….”

When John Lawrence Smith died in 1889, he left the homestead and 200 acres of surrounding farmland in Smithtown Branch to his only son James Clinch Smith.  He didn’t make any provisions for his daughters because by the time of the Judge’s death, all of his daughters were happily married to successful men who were comfortably wealthy.  Only James had yet to find a mate and the Judge decided to give his son his legacy.  But in reality, the Judge’s greatest legacy was not his wealth; rather it was to be found in his five daughters and their husbands and the children they produced.  They were the Judge’s legacy to the people of Smithtown and what an amazing gift they proved to be.   

The Judge’s oldest daughter, Cornelia was the first daughter to be married.  In 1874, when Cornelia was 28, she married her mother’s 26 year old cousin, Prescott Hall Butler.  As a law student, Prescott Butler clerked for Judge Smith in his home in Smithtown Branch and this is where Cornelia and Prescott became acquainted.  Following their June marriage in the St. James Episcopal Church, the Butlers lived in New York City where Prescott’s parents owned an apartment building.  Prescott joined his father’s law firm – Evarts, Southmayd, and Beman.   Apparently, Prescott Butler did very well as a lawyer since in 1879 he had the money to ask his Harvard classmate Charles McKIm to design a summer house for him in St. James.  The house, known as ‘Bytheharbor,’ was McKim’s first commission as an architect and was subsequently built on the crest of a hill overlooking St. James Harbor.  Entrance gates and a winding driveway led directly to the house that was just off the northeast corner of Moriches Road and Cordwood Path.  To bring water to the house, Prescott Butler had a 150-foot tall windmill constructed on the harbor and the windmill pumped fresh water up the hill to the house.  

The Butlers spent their summers in St. James and their children, Lawrence (b.1875), Charles (b.1876), and Susan (b.1879) all grew up in this house by the harbor. Eventually, the Butlers would own “more than 800 contiguous acres of land in this area, including some sixty-eight acres on Fifty Acre Road which their sons Charles and Lawrence and daughter Susan Huntington were to inherit.” That inheritance came quicker than anyone anticipated. Just before the turn of the twentieth century, Prescott Butler had a fine new stable built for his horses, swearing that he would never own an automobile.  He never did since Prescott Butler died of cancer in 1901 at the age of 53.  (Barbara Van Lieu, Head-of-the-Harbor, A Journey Through Time, Main Road Books, Inc., Laurel, N.Y., 2005, pp. 36-37.)

Louise Nicoll Smith was the Judge’s second oldest daughter. Less than three months after Cornelia’s wedding, Louise, who was 25, married Frank Osborne on October 20, 1874.  Like Cornelia, she married a 30 year old law student named Frank Sayre Osborne who was clerking in the Judge’s law office.  They too were married in the St. James Episcopal Church.  Frank Osborne took his young bride to Chicago where the Osbornes made their home.  Frank and Louise had their first child, a girl named Sarah Nicoll Osborne, in August of 1875, and the children just kept arriving — Cornelia Stewart Osborne in 1877, Lawrence Woodhull Osborne in 1879, Harold Sayre Osborne in 1881, Ernest Baxter Osborne and Felix Sayre Osborne (twins) in 1883, and Farrand Sayre Osborne in 1887.  Out of the seven children, only Cornelia Stewart Osborne returned to live in St. James.  (Frederick Kinsman Smith, The Family of Richard Smith of Smithtown, L.I., The Smithtown Historical Society, Smithtown, L.I., N.Y., 1967, pp. 368-369.)

The Judge’s third daughter was Kate Annette Smith.  Kate married an Episcopal priest, Reverend Joseph Bloomfield Wetherill, in Trinity Church in New York on January 2, 1879.  Reverend Wetherill was serving as Rector of St. Ambrose Chapel and as an assistant to Reverend Morgan Dix who was the priest for Trinity Church. How Kate met Rev. Wetherill, and how long a courtship they had is not known.  This marriage must have come as a shock to the Judge since Rev. Wetherill was 44 when he married 27 year old Kate, and the timing of the wedding, a day after New Year’s Day in 1879, suggests that they married simply and quietly without a big wedding.  They lived in the city following their wedding.  They had three children, two daughters and a son – Cornelia Stewart, b. in 1879; Isabella Macomb, b. in 1883; and Alexander Stewart, b. in 1885.  Unfortunately for Kate, her 51 year old husband died in 1886, just a year and a half after the birth of his son Alexander.  Kate Wetherill became a 34 year old widow with three small children.  Following her husband’s death, Kate continued to live in the city with her children. (Frederick Kinsman Smith, op. cit., p. 369.)

The Judge’s youngest daughter was Bessie Springs Smith and she married the architect Stanford White.  Stanford White became a partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Meade and White, and it was Charles McKim who introduced Stanford White to Cornelia’s younger sister, Bessie.  “According to a family legend when McKim brought his young partner to visit the Smiths” at the Homestead, Bessie spied on White “through a keyhole” in the Judge’s office and is said to have “exclaimed, ‘Oh, I’d give anything to touch the hair on top of his head!’” Stanford White always cut his “blazing red hair” in a crew cut, and that combined with “his stagy handlebar mustache” made the architect “seem to radiate energy” and sparks.  No wonder Bessie wanted to see if he would give off electricity.  When he met her, White was “immediately attracted” by the 18 year old with “an ample figure,” but it took “three years of what Prescott Hall Butler characterized as ‘a protracted siege’ before she agreed to marry him.”  (Stanford White’s New York, pp. 93-95.)

  Bessie and Stanford White were married in a big wedding in Trinity Church in New York City on Feb. 7, 1884.  Not long after the Whites returned from their six month European honeymoon, Bessie managed to convince her husband to “purchase Samuel Carmen’s farmhouse” that stood on the bluff overlooking St. James Harbor with a view of the harbor that Bessie had admired since childhood.  Samuel Carmen’s farm was located on the south side of Cordwood Path and extended from Moriches Road down the hill to the harbor shoreline.  The house was just across the road from Cornelia’s Bytheharbor home. Stanford White remodeled the farmhouse in 1891, 1899, and 1902, transforming the simple farmhouse into a large 15,000 square foot mansion with 13 gables and pebble-dashed exterior.  This house, known as Box Hill because of all the boxwoods that Stanford White planted around the house, became the homestead for generations of the White family that inherited it.  Bessie and Stanford had two children, Richard Grant (b.1884) who lived for eight months, and Lawrence Grant (b.1887) who lived to become an architect like his father and actually succeeded him in the firm of McKim, Mead and White.  As her sister had chosen to do, Bessie remained in St. James following her husband’s death. (Barbara Van Lieu, op. cit., p. 36.)

Ella Batavia Smith, the Judge’s fourth daughter was actually his last daughter to be married.  It was Ella who proved to be the most difficult child for the Judge to manage.  According to family lore, Ella was in her teens when she became romantically involved with another of her mother’s cousins – Charles Clinch.  The Judge was adamantly opposed to any relationship developing between Ella and Charles and “vigorously discouraged” any further contact between the two young people.  “‘There has been enough of that stuff in this family,’ he reportedly said.”  The ‘stuff’ he was referring to was the propensity of Smiths marrying their cousins and he didn’t like it, although he had allowed Cornelia to marry Prescott Hall Butler.  But this union the Judge was determined to prevent.  Since he was “unable or unwilling to send” Ella away “on the European tour traditional in such cases, he had a wooden cage built for her in the attic” of the Homestead.  “After being imprisoned there and fed on bread and water for a month, young Ella became quite ill and was released.”  (Barbara Van Lieu, op. cit., p. 52-53.)  

Whether or not Ella was actually imprisoned in the attic of the Homestead, the fact remains that there is a wooden cage in the Homestead attic and it can be seen in the photograph accompanying this article.  Charles Clinch became a career officer in the army and stayed away from Ella.  Ella pined away for a number of years and then married Devereux Emmet on January 27, 1889.  The wedding announcement shows that the Judge’s family was all present for Ella’s wedding – Cornelia, Louise, Kate, James, and Bessie were there.  A wedding breakfast was held before the noon wedding that took place at “the residence of her father, ex-Judge J. Lawrence Smith, 537 Fifth-avenue.” The wedding ceremony was performed by the Rev. Dr. William S. Rainsford of St. George’s Episcopal Church and was “held in the presence of relatives and friends,” and the “bride’s four nieces“ – Cornelia Wetherill, Susie Butler, Eleanor Emmet, and Cornelia Osborne “attended the bride as she approached the floral altar.”  The little girls “wore white dresses and pink wreaths, and carried baskets of pink flowers.”  The reception for “500 guests” was held in the afternoon in the long parlor of the Judge’s home that had been “elaborately decorated with flowers.”  When the wedding reception ended, the newly-weds departed on a three week honeymoon. Following the honeymoon, the Emmets planned to return to New York where they intended “to make their home at Cooperstown, where the groom has a large estate.”  But these plans may have been cut short as Ella was drawn back to Smithtown when her father died. (“At Her Father’s Home, Miss Ella Batavia Smith Married to Devereux Emmet,” Proquest Historical Newspapers, The New York Times, Jan. 27, 1889, p. 9.) 

Judge John Lawrence Smith passed away at his home in Smithtown Branch on March 17, 1889 less than two months after Ella’s wedding.  He was 73.  He had lived to see his five daughters grow into captivating young women who all found suitable mates and he had danced at their weddings.  And he managed to live long enough to know some of his grandchildren who would become leaders of Smithtown long after he was gone.  He died believing that his son James would succeed him as the patriarch of the family and become a leader in Smithtown.  But that didn’t happen and it was the Judge’s daughters who became leaders in Smithtown.    

More about the Smith sisters and their impact upon Smithtown next week….    

Theater Review "Les Miserables"

THEATER REVIEW

“Les Miserables”

Produced by: Theatre Three, Port Jefferson - Reviewed by: Jeb Ladouceur

Steve McCoy as Jean Valjean and Ed Brennan as Javert in a scene from ‘Les Misérables’ in Port Jeff Photo by Sarah BushAlmost as interesting as this compelling musical itself, is the circuitous route the Victor Hugo novel took from conception to its ultimate production on the American stage.

Les Miserables was first released as a French ‘Concept’ record album … that is, a recording all of whose musical numbers share a common theme. Sinatra’s ‘Come Fly With Me’ album (featuring songs of international travel) is an example of the ‘Concept’ genre, as is Woody Guthrie’s ‘Dust Bowl Ballads’ collection.

‘Les Mis’ was fairly well received as a record album, and was first presented as a stage show at a sporting arena in Paris in 1980. That adaptation, however, couldn’t trump the Frenchmen’s inordinate love for soccer, and the play closed after three months.

In New York in 1983, a British producer named Cameron Mackintosh was given a copy of the French ‘Concept’ album. Though impressed, Mackintosh was reluctant to run with the idea of producing a theater version of ‘Les Miserables’ in English … he had, after all, just opened on Broadway with the hugely successful ‘Cats.’

However, pressed by friends and theater connections, Mackintosh finally agreed to put together a production team that included Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company, and two years later London’s West End mounted the world’s first English language stage version of ‘Les Mis.’

The rest, as they say, is history, and thanks to Port Jefferson’s Theatre Three and Director Jeffrey Sanzel, Long Island theatergoers will be the beneficiaries thru November 2.

This show deals with inequality … and particularly with the unjust treatment leveled on protagonist Jean Valjean (perfectly played by Steve McCoy) whose agony is brutally constant. The essentially narrative role of Valjean’s pursuer, the malevolent policeman Javert, is interpreted and rendered with equal expertise by the seemingly omnipresent Ed Brennan. Together, this pair produces a theatrical work of art.

Balancing the scales skillfully are the comedic characters, Monsieur and Madame Thenardier, keepers of a bawdy house. Twice—in Act 1 then again in Act 2—these irresistibly naughty originals command the stage from the minute they set foot on it, and in both cases they deliver absolute showstoppers. Credit not only Jennifer Collester Tully and James D. Schultz (as the Thenardiers) but include Choreographer Sari Feldman.

In a show whose excellent cast consists of forty named players and another twenty unnamed, it is relatively impossible to list all the credits due the players. This reviewer will go out on a limb, however, and predict that no patron attending Theatre Three’s production of ‘Les Miserables’ will find any actor’s performance lacking. Everyone sings beautifully, moves effortlessly, and looks his part.

Costumes, make-up, set design, and lighting are all unobtrusively exquisite. Music, though limited in variety, is never found wanting … after all, when fifty or sixty voices are raised in heraldic song, who is going to say a second oboe was needed in the pit? As for the touching solos and duets … I don’t recall even being aware of the accompanist. Which is probably as it should be.

Award-winning Smithtown author Jeb Ladouceur has published seven novels. His theater reviews appear in dozens of L. I. newspapers. In Ladouceur’s next thriller, “The Dealer” due this summer, Israeli extortionists threaten to destroy Hoover Dam demolishing the Las Vegas Strip - if casino operators don’t pay millions.