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.

News Of Long Ago - Judge John Lawrence Smith's Homestead (part II)

News of Long Ago by Bradley Harris, Smithtown Historian

(In last week’s article, I wrote about the life and career of Judge John Lawrence Smith, 1816-1889, a fifth generation descendant of Richard Smythe, the founder and patentee of Smithtown. This article takes a look at the house he acquired and modified to become his family home in Smithtown Branch, the house that we know today as The Homestead at 205 Middle Country Road.)

“Judge John Lawrence Smith’s Homestead in Smithtown Branch….” 

The Homestead, the large stately house that stands at 205 Middle Country Road, was once the home of Judge John Lawrence Smith. Today the house is owned by the Smithtown Historical Society and is in the process of being restored to look much as it did when the Judge lived here.  The most visible change will be the addition of the front porch that used to stretch across the full length of the house. (See the drawing of the Homestead that accompanies this article.)  The porch will restore the historic look and character of the house that the Judge called the Homestead.

John Lawrence Smith and his wife Sarah Nicoll Clinch purchased the old Blydenburgh house in Smithtown Branch sometime around 1850.  For the first years of their marriage, the Smiths had lived in Nissequogue, on the ancestral lands of the Smiths.  But with the birth of three children, Sarah found the location inconvenient and too far from a general store — “six miles from a lemon” as she told her children.  John Lawrence Smith had also been elected as an Assemblyman from Suffolk County and he needed a prominent location in the village of Smithtown Branch to match his new political status.  The Smiths found the house they wanted when they purchased the old Blydenburgh homestead on Middle Country Road.  The house was quite large having been created in the 1790’s by Richard Blydenburgh III  who joined two houses together to make one.  The eastern half of the house was the original house on the site, and is thought to have been built by William Blydenburgh (1727-1768) shortly after his marriage to Mary Arthur in 1757.  The western half of the house, moved onto the site in the 1790’s by Richard Blydenburgh, is thought to be as old or older than the house built by William Blydenburgh and was originally standing to the west of William’s house. Both parts of the Homestead were built before the American Revolution.  This means that the Homestead is made up of two of the oldest houses in Smithtown Branch.  These homes, and the Homestead they became, were occupied by generations of Blydenburghs long before John Lawrence Smith acquired and made it his “Homestead.” 

When the Smiths moved into the Homestead, probably sometime in 1851, the Smiths had three children and they had plenty of room in the spacious house.  But this changed as the Smiths had more children and the Judge made improvements to the property.  The first change was made “to accommodate” John Lawrence Smith’s “law practice.”  With his election as Suffolk County District Attorney in 1850, the Judge needed an office in his own home.  So he added “a two story wing with a flat roof and wide eaves on the north side” of the house.  The addition “created an outer office on the ground floor … in a wing measuring fifteen by thirty feet.”  This office had a door on the west side which gave access to Judge’s Lane and made it possible for clients to visit the office without having to pass through the house.  On the second floor of this addition, the Smiths added a bedroom and a bath.  They needed the additional room for their family which was growing by leaps and bounds.  (Nicholas M. Langhart, “Architecture and Town Planning in Smithtown, L.I., N.Y., 1665-1825,” published Master’s thesis, Cornell University, 1984, copy on file with the Smithtown Historical Society.)  

During the first nineteen years of their marriage, the Smiths had eleven children.  Although two of these children died in infancy, nine children crowded into the rooms of the house.  Bessie Smith, the Smiths’ tenth child, remembers sleeping with her sisters in a trundle bed.  “I used to sleep first with Lottie and then, I think, with Ella in the old Trundle bed; a large square box on rollers about a foot high, from the floor, which was all covered up and rolled underneath Nannie’s bed during the day.”  The older Smith children shared other bedrooms throughout the house.  (Bessie Smith White, “Memories,” unpublished manuscript on file with the Smithtown Historical Society, written in 1926.)

The need for more space led the Judge to build “a large, flat-roofed addition on the north side of the early kitchen wing on the east end.  This addition accommodated a new, large kitchen and pantry on the ground floor, with a nursery on the second floor.”  Presumably, the old Blydenburg kitchen was then converted into a dining room. (Nicholas M. Langhart, op. cit.) With so many babies and children in the house, the larger kitchen and nursery were necessities.  To help Sarah with the children, the Smiths employed a Scotch nurse named Cecilia Thompson.  She was the ‘Nannie” that Bessie Smith knew:  “We had an old Scotch nurse, Cecilia Thompson, by name, who brought us all up and was our devoted slave.  She was always merry, and never allowed us to be frightened, at anything.  When we were naughty, her only threat was, that she would go away!  And many a tear did I shed, at seeing her put on her bonnet and old Paisley Shawl – but of course, she didn’t mean it and stayed with us until she died, and she is buried in our family plot, in St. James church-yard.”  (Bessie Smith White, op. cit.)

In addition to the nurse, the Smiths had an Irish cook named “Lizzie Rowan, and an old darkie servant, Mary, who did all the rest of the work in the house.  Mary lived with her two boys, in the ‘darkie quarters,’ a wing of our house, set apart for them.  Her oldest boy, ‘Morris,’ was quite a character!  He did various jobs about the place, but had the bad habit of running away – so after various floggings, which were useless – my father decided to dress him in a suit of bright red cloth, with brass buttons – and this cured him!”  (Bessie Smith White, op. cit.)  With the addition of the hired help, the total number of people living in the Smith family home in 1865 reached fifteen.  This made even the large house seem jam-packed with people.

The Judge made one further addition to the house in 1870 when his mother-in-law, Ann Taylor (Nicoll) Clinch, came to live with the Smiths after her husband died.  The Judge had an east wing added to the east end of the house that was to serve as an apartment for his mother-in-law.  She lived here until her death in 1880.  The apartment which had high ceilings was then converted into a ballroom and was used for dances which were occasionally held at the Smiths’ home.  (Nicholas M. Langhart, op. cit.)   The result of all these modifications to the house can be seen in the accompanying drawing of the “Residence of Judge J. Lawrence Smith.”  The Judge had converted the simple home of the Blydenburghs into an impressive residence that was worthy of the Surrogate Judge of Suffolk County.  

The Judge also made some significant improvements to the street scape in the village of Smithtown Branch by planting shipmast locust trees along the sides of Middle Country Road.  He probably began the project of lining the road with trees sometime after he moved into the Homestead in 1851.  He chose the Yellow Locust tree (also known as the Shipmast locust) for several reasons.  In the History of Smithtown that he authored in 1883, the Judge wrote:  “The tree when standing alone is symmetrical in form, its foliage is dense and of a soft delicate green, pleasant to the eye, and its substance combine to so fertilize the ground that there is always found about the base of the tree, even in sterile soils, a rich velvet sod.”  He believed the locust was “unsurpassed” as a “shade tree for” the Smithtown locality, its leaves creating a “dense shade” in the summer, and then with the coming of fall, drying and curling up into an insignificant leaf that was easily blown away by the wind.  (J. Lawrence Smith, The History of Smithtown, Smithtown Historical Society, New York, 1961, pp. 27-28.)

   The shipmast locust trees that the Judge planted were not planted by seed.  Instead the Judge had to find a mature tree that was sending out shoots and then dig out the sprouts and transplant them.  Fortunately, the shipmast locust tree is very hardy and grows like a weed, so the saplings that the Judge planted rapidly took root and grew straight and tall forming an allee through the village of Smithtown Branch.  According to the Judge, “the beautiful rows of locust extending the whole length of the street at Smithtown Branch are the admiration of all summer visitors.”  (J. Lawrence Smith, op. cit.)  The shipmast locust trees are still admired by visitors to Smithtown.  Just as the Homestead has become part of the legacy that John Lawrence Smith left to us all, so too are the shipmast locust trees that continue to grace our town, and we should make every effort we can to see that the legacy endures.                   

Kings Park Man Dies After Struggle With Police

Suffolk County Police officers transported Lawrence Ports, 60, of Hemlock Drive, Kings Park, to Stony Brook University Hospital on September 24, 2013. Police initially responded to 35 Hemlock Drive after receiving a call that Ports was behaving irrationally. Responding police requested assistance from the Suffolk County Mental Health Mobile Crisis Team and it was determined that Ports should be taken to Stony Brook University Hospital.

While at the hospital, Ports became combative and attempted to flee from the officers. The officers restrained Ports, and during the incident Ports suffered a head injury. He was treated at the hospital where he remained until October 11. His condition deteriorated and he was pronounced dead on October 11.

The Suffolk County Police Department has been conducting an investigation into this incident since the date of its occurrence. An autopsy is being conducted by the Suffolk County Medical Examiner’s Office. The investigation is continuing.

News Of Long Ago - Judge John Lawrence Smith Part I

News of Long Ago by Bradley Harris, Smithtown Historian

(This article begins the story of John Lawrence Smith, 1816-1889, a remarkable man who had a profound impact upon the development of Smithtown Branch and left an incredible legacy to the people of Smithtown. That legacy included his son James Clinch Smith and his five sisters, the house at 205 Middle Country Road that we know as the Smith family ‘Homestead,’ the book entitled The History of Smithtown that the Judge authored in 1883, and an incredible quantity of documents, photographs, law books, paintings, artifacts, and memorabilia from his life.)  

“Judge John Lawrence Smith, pillar of the community of Smithtown Branch…”

John Lawrence Smith was an extraordinary man who had a remarkable career as a lawyer and judge in Suffolk County.  A native of Smithtown, born in Nissequogue on September 20, 1816, John Lawrence Smith rose from humble beginnings to establish himself as one of the finest legal minds in Suffolk County and he proved to be one of the ablest of politicians.  He eventually moved his family to Smithtown Branch after purchasing the old Blydenburgh residence at 205 Middle Country Road.  He became a pillar of the local community and certainly one of the most illustrious members of the Smith family.  

John Lawrence Smith was the third son and fifth child born to Richard and Eliza Willett (Nicoll) Smith.  Richard Smith was a fifth generation descendant of Richard Smythe, the founder and patentee of Smithtown, and so shared in the proprietary land rights of Smithtown.  He inherited a 400 acre farm in Nissequogue and here he raised his family of three sons and five daughters.  When John Lawrence was born in September of 1816, he was welcomed into this world by his three siblings, his brother Edward Henry who was seven at the time, his sister Ann Eliza who was five, and his brother Richard Bull who was also five.  Unfortunately Richard Bull did not survive another year and with his death John Lawrence became the second oldest son of the Smiths.  Another Smith daughter, Marcia Augusta, died as an infant in December of 1815, a year before John Lawrence was born. I mention this because it points out the position that John Lawrence held in the family. (Frederick Kinsman Smith, The Family of Richard Smith of Smithtown, L.I., Smithtown Historical Society, 1967, p. 188-189.)  

His older brother, Edward Henry attended school to the age of 12 when his schooling entirely ceased and he became the manager of his father’s farm in Nissequogue.  He proved to be a very capable and industrious farmer and eventually he inherited the family farm in Nissequogue.  John Lawrence must also have attended school locally but showed such promise that his family sent him to Clinton Academy in East Hampton.  When he completed Clinton Academy, his family found the means to send him on to Yale where he became a “classmate of Samuel J. Tilden, William W. Evarts, Edward Pierrepont, Morrison R. Waite, William W. Eaton, Benjamin Silliman, John P. Putnam, and other men of note and ability.”  For some reason, he left Yale in 1833, at the age of 17, and transferred to Princeton where he graduated in 1837.  He then came back to New York City where he studied law in the office of John L. Lawrence.  In 1840, he was admitted to the bar.  As a young lawyer, he set up practice in New York City for the next several years.  (J. Lawrence Smith, The History of Smithtown, Smithtown Historical Society, Smithtown, 1961, p. 31.)

It was at this time that he met his future bride, Sarah Nicoll Clinch, who he married in 1845.  Sarah Nicoll Clinch was the daughter of James and Ann Taylor (Nicoll) Clinch of New York City.  She was a city girl from a socially prominent family and the marriage took place on February 4, 1845 in St. Mark’s Church.  Not long after their marriage, John Lawrence Smith gave up his law practice in New York City and moved back to Smithtown with his new bride. About the same time he relocated to Smithtown, John Lawrence Smith became involved in local politics.  He ran for the New York State Assembly on the Democratic ticket and was elected in 1846 as an Assemblyman from Suffolk County.  

It may have been his involvement in local politics that drew him back to Smithtown and country living, but it is interesting that his daughter, Bessie Smith White, believed that he moved back to Smithtown because of his failing eyesight.  In a manuscript she prepared in May of 1926 entitled “Memories’” Bessie wrote:  “Soon after his marriage, he gave up his law practice, in New York, and went to live in the country because of his eyesight.  He had been told that he had ruined his eyes with too much smoking; so he had a horror of tobacco smoking – in any form – and all around his offices at Smithtown, there were huge signs ‘No Smoking’ and he would never allow my brothers and their friends to smoke, even a cigarette, in the house.”   

In the same manuscript, Bessie also commented about the first residence that her father and mother established in Nissequogue:  “When she (Sarah) and Father were first married, they lived in a white, wooden house, on a hill at Nissequogue – not far from the old stone house, where Father was born and brought up, and where many of the descendants of Richard Bull Smith lived.  Nissequogue was, however, very remote – ‘six miles from a lemon,’ as Mother used to say, and after the births of their first three children (in N.Y.C.), they decided to buy the Blydenburgh house on the village street in Smithtown.  That is where all the rest of the children were born and brought up.”  Certainly the fact that Nissequogue was so far from the heart of the village of Smithtown, led the Smiths to relocate in Smithtown Branch.  Assemblyman John Lawrence Smith needed a prominent location in town to match his new political status.

In 1850, John Lawrence Smith ran for the office of District Attorney of Suffolk County.  Again he ran on the Democratic ticket and again he was elected.  He served with such distinction in this office that the Democratic Party nominated him for Suffolk County Judge.  He won election in spite of the 600 vote margin that the Republicans enjoyed over Democrats in Suffolk County. “So fitted did he show himself to perform judicial duties that he was renominated as County Judge and Surrogate in 1862, and … he was again elected, by 1,100 vote majority, upon the Democratic ticket. (J. Lawrence Smith, The History of Smithtown, Smithtown Historical Society, 1961, p. 31.)     

Judge J. Lawrence Smith became such a respected jurist in Suffolk County that he won election again and again to the office of Suffolk County Judge and Surrogate.  He continued to serve as a Suffolk County Judge until his death in 1889.  The fact that such a prominent and respected jurist lived in the middle of the little community of Smithtown Branch, and had his office there, gave a measure of importance to the village.  This fact became even more significant when the Judge’s Office later became the site of trials in Suffolk County.  According to his daughter Bessie, her father was “Judge of Suffolk County and ‘Judge Smith’s Office’ was the real judgement seat for the Townspeople, a place to be feared and revered!  All the disputes of the Town were brought to my father, and later, when he was too ill to go to hold Court at Riverhead, the Court was brought to the office in Smithtown.”  Here in offices built off the west side of the Homestead, the Judge held court and dispensed justice to the people of Suffolk County.  The Judge’s presence in the community put the little village of Smithtown Branch on the map.