Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Gerrit Smith
Gerrit Smith (March 6, 1797 – December 28, 1874), also spelled Gerritt Smith, was an American social reformer, abolitionist, businessman, public intellectual, and philanthropist. Married to Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, Smith was a candidate for President of the United States in 1848, 1856, and 1860. He served a single term in the House of Representatives from 1853 to 1854.
First valedictorian of the new Hamilton College (1818), and married to the daughter of the college president, he had "a fine mind", with "a strong literary bent and a marked gift for public speaking". He was called "the sage of Peterboro." He was well liked, even by his political enemies. The many who appeared at his house in Peterboro, invited or not, were well received. (In 1842 the names of 132 visitors were recorded.)
Smith, one of the wealthiest men in New York, was committed to political reform, and above all to the elimination of slavery. So many fugitive slaves came to Peterboro to ask for his help (usually, in reaching Canada) that there is a book about them. Peterboro was, because of Smith, the capital of the abolition movement. The only assembly of escaped slaves (as opposed to free Blacks) ever to meet in the United States—the Fugitive Slave Convention of 1850—took place in neighboring Cazenovia because Peterboro was too small for the meeting.
Smith was also, and less successfully, a temperance activist, and a women's rights suffrage advocate. He was a significant financial contributor to the Liberty Party and the Republican Party throughout his life. Besides making substantial donations of both land and money to create Timbuctoo, an African-American community in North Elba, New York, he was involved in the temperance movement and the colonization movement, before abandoning colonization in favor of abolitionism, the immediate freeing of all the slaves. He was a member of the Secret Six who financially supported John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, in 1859. Brown's farm, in North Elba, was on land he bought from Smith.
Smith was born in Utica, New York, when it was still an unincorporated village. He was one of four children of Peter Gerrit Smith (1768–1837), whose ancestors were from Holland (Gerrit is a Dutch name), and Elizabeth (Livingston) Smith (†1818), daughter of Col. James Livingston and Elizabeth (Simpson) Livingston. Peter, an actor as a young man, and who coached Gerrit in public speaking, was a slave owner, the first judge in Madison County, and the largest landholder in New York State. "In partnership with John Jacob Astor in the fur trade and alone in real estate, Peter Smith [had] managed to amass a considerable fortune. Peter was the county judge of Madison County, New York, and has been described as 'easily its leading citizen'." He was "a devout and emotionally religious man".[citation needed] From 1822 on, Peter Smith was intensely engaged in the work of the Bible and tract societies."
The author of the only book on Peter calls him greedy, self-centered, driven by the search for profits, and someone who did not like people who were not like him: white, male, and Dutch. He was not philanthropic. "Other people...[were] objects to be used for his own benefit, especially if they were culturally different than himself. Native Americans, poor people, black people, and non-Christians he viewed with disrespect."
Peter spent his last years in a religious fanaticism that led him to give up all his worldly goods. He turned over a $400,000 business [equivalent to $8,413,043 in 2025] to his son Gerrit in 1819 and bequeathed $800,000 more [equivalent to $17,916,667 in 2025] to his children in 1837. Gerrit also inherited 50,000 acres (20,000 ha) of land from his father, and at one point he owned 750,000 acres (300,000 ha), an area bigger than Rhode Island. Another source says that he inherited from his father over one million acres in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York. An 1846 listing of lands he was offering for sale fills 45 pages.
Gerrit had an older brother, Peter Smith Jr., who was a problem drinker that died young, and a younger brother Adolph, who was "clinically insane and confined to a nearby institution."
Hub AI
Gerrit Smith AI simulator
(@Gerrit Smith_simulator)
Gerrit Smith
Gerrit Smith (March 6, 1797 – December 28, 1874), also spelled Gerritt Smith, was an American social reformer, abolitionist, businessman, public intellectual, and philanthropist. Married to Ann Carroll Fitzhugh, Smith was a candidate for President of the United States in 1848, 1856, and 1860. He served a single term in the House of Representatives from 1853 to 1854.
First valedictorian of the new Hamilton College (1818), and married to the daughter of the college president, he had "a fine mind", with "a strong literary bent and a marked gift for public speaking". He was called "the sage of Peterboro." He was well liked, even by his political enemies. The many who appeared at his house in Peterboro, invited or not, were well received. (In 1842 the names of 132 visitors were recorded.)
Smith, one of the wealthiest men in New York, was committed to political reform, and above all to the elimination of slavery. So many fugitive slaves came to Peterboro to ask for his help (usually, in reaching Canada) that there is a book about them. Peterboro was, because of Smith, the capital of the abolition movement. The only assembly of escaped slaves (as opposed to free Blacks) ever to meet in the United States—the Fugitive Slave Convention of 1850—took place in neighboring Cazenovia because Peterboro was too small for the meeting.
Smith was also, and less successfully, a temperance activist, and a women's rights suffrage advocate. He was a significant financial contributor to the Liberty Party and the Republican Party throughout his life. Besides making substantial donations of both land and money to create Timbuctoo, an African-American community in North Elba, New York, he was involved in the temperance movement and the colonization movement, before abandoning colonization in favor of abolitionism, the immediate freeing of all the slaves. He was a member of the Secret Six who financially supported John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, in 1859. Brown's farm, in North Elba, was on land he bought from Smith.
Smith was born in Utica, New York, when it was still an unincorporated village. He was one of four children of Peter Gerrit Smith (1768–1837), whose ancestors were from Holland (Gerrit is a Dutch name), and Elizabeth (Livingston) Smith (†1818), daughter of Col. James Livingston and Elizabeth (Simpson) Livingston. Peter, an actor as a young man, and who coached Gerrit in public speaking, was a slave owner, the first judge in Madison County, and the largest landholder in New York State. "In partnership with John Jacob Astor in the fur trade and alone in real estate, Peter Smith [had] managed to amass a considerable fortune. Peter was the county judge of Madison County, New York, and has been described as 'easily its leading citizen'." He was "a devout and emotionally religious man".[citation needed] From 1822 on, Peter Smith was intensely engaged in the work of the Bible and tract societies."
The author of the only book on Peter calls him greedy, self-centered, driven by the search for profits, and someone who did not like people who were not like him: white, male, and Dutch. He was not philanthropic. "Other people...[were] objects to be used for his own benefit, especially if they were culturally different than himself. Native Americans, poor people, black people, and non-Christians he viewed with disrespect."
Peter spent his last years in a religious fanaticism that led him to give up all his worldly goods. He turned over a $400,000 business [equivalent to $8,413,043 in 2025] to his son Gerrit in 1819 and bequeathed $800,000 more [equivalent to $17,916,667 in 2025] to his children in 1837. Gerrit also inherited 50,000 acres (20,000 ha) of land from his father, and at one point he owned 750,000 acres (300,000 ha), an area bigger than Rhode Island. Another source says that he inherited from his father over one million acres in Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New York. An 1846 listing of lands he was offering for sale fills 45 pages.
Gerrit had an older brother, Peter Smith Jr., who was a problem drinker that died young, and a younger brother Adolph, who was "clinically insane and confined to a nearby institution."