Sidewalks and streetlights, thanks to humble, heroic, teetotaling Mayor Frederick Smyth

Sign Up For Our FREE Daily eNews!

musings logo


Given what I do for work, it should come as no surprise that, at the moment, one of my most treasured possessions is a book.

It’s an old book and I treasure it because it once belonged to my paternal grandmother, Sadie (Wright) Clayton, who made the book all the more precious to me when she inscribed her name inside the front cover.

I also treasure it because it’s a publishing oddity, one in which the cover was incorrectly affixed to the text. As a result, when I hold the book to read it – much like that old “Mad” magazine gag – the cover is upside down, so anyone who sees me reading it will think I am an illiterate or a loon or both.

Manchester Mayor Frederick Smyth.
Manchester Mayor Frederick Smyth.

I also treasure it because it is a biography of Frederick Smyth, and if you made a short list of Manchester people who were deserving of a leather-bound biography, his name would be on that list.

It was Frederick Smyth who, upon being elected mayor of Manchester in 1852 at the tender age of 33, said “I fear I may fall far short of the expectations of my fellow citizens who have placed me in this responsible position.” Humility in a politician? Yikes!

It was Frederick Smyth who brought the Queen City its first water and sewer systems, its first street lights and its first sidewalks. He is also the man who, “against considerable opposition, obtained the authority of the city council to set trees on Elm Street and (upon) land owned by the city.”

It was Frederick Smyth who, before a Manchester audience in 1860, had the temerity to introduce a gangly legislator from Illinois as “the next President of the United States” – not Barack Obama; it was Abe Lincoln – and it was Frederick Smyth who introduced yet another U.S. President, Rutherford B. Hayes, to a new-fangled contraption called the telephone.

That last introduction took place at the Smyth mansion called “The Willows.” It was situated near the Amoskeag Bridge where the Brady-Sullivan Tower – formerly known as the New Hampshire Insurance Building – now stands, and there are preservationists here In The City who still weep when they talk about the razing of that once-glorious mansion.

From “The Willows” – his mansion on the east bluff above Amoskeag Falls – Frederick Smyth could observe the construction of the Amoskeag Dam from on high.
From “The Willows” – his mansion on the east bluff above Amoskeag Falls – Frederick Smyth could observe the construction of the Amoskeag Dam from on high.

Clearly, this is a man whose deeds were worth chronicling, which is what happened in 1885 when Benjamin Perley Poore and F.B. Eaton collaborated on the book they called “Sketches of the Life and Public Services of Frederick Smyth of New Hampshire.”

If you were to read it from the beginning – and you’d be surprised how few people do that – you would discover that this noted man of Manchester was actually born on a farm in Candia where “these hardy tillers of the rock-bound soil produced – with the aid of their wives, daughters and sons – every article eaten or worn by the family.”

Charming though it may be, Candia offered little for a man of Smyth’s ambitions, so he came to Manchester where he quickly made a fortune in the mercantile and banking trades and – at the age of 30 – retired to a life of public service.

His four terms as mayor were not without their controversies. City councilors balked at the extravagant notion of paying for city sidewalks, for example. Furthermore, Smyth’s efforts to upgrade conditions at the “House of Reformation for Juvenile Offenders ” were derided as “a $40,000 Palace for Prostitutes” – bet that headline got some pulses racing back in 1855 – but it was a time when Smyth was out of office, as was the case in July 1863, that his true commitment to public service was even more in evidence.

This is from “Sketches of Frederick Smyth” – “After the Battle of Gettysburg, he hastened with others to that bloody field,” the authors noted, “where he labored among the wounded soldiers until he was himself prostrated by exposure and over-exertion.

“The sickening effluvia of the battlefield, the sounds and sights of distress beyond all human aid brought him to a sick bed where he was confined during most of the fall of 1863,” the authors added, and yet, the next May – even after he “reluctantly assented” to serve that fourth term as mayor – “there came news of the horrors of war as displayed at Fredericksburg, and Mr. Smyth again hastened to the front to help carry wounded from the field, some declaring, under God, that they owed their lives to his tender care.”

Now, before you think I am seeking to beatify Mr. Smyth, you should know that he and I were of different minds in some critical areas.

These areas include cussing and drinking.

First of all, he thought the people of Manchester were a bit coarse in their public discourse, which he noted after his first trip abroad.

“I have not heard so much profanity since I have been in London as may be sometimes heard in Manchester in one day,” he wrote, “though I daily pass a crowd three miles long.”

And as much as he disliked swearing, he abhorred drinking.

“From that day in which I first assumed the responsible position conferred upon me by the people of New Hampshire,” he explained to a crowd at Dartmouth College during his second term as governor, “I resolved not to furnish intoxicating liquors to my guests or friends on any occasion, public or private, or partake myself.

“When called upon to drink at public dinners in response to patriotic or friendly sentiments,” he added, “I have invariably used cold water, the best drink – for a cool head, a clear mind and a good conscience – ever given to man.”

OK, so he didn’t cuss or enjoy a touch of the grape? These are minor quibbles between me and the man who still continues to serve the people of Manchester more than a century after his death. That service comes in the form of the Frederick Smyth Institute of Music, which provides scholarships for students in the city high schools who choose to study music at the college level.

It’s just one more reason to sing his praises.


John Clayton

John Clayton is Executive Director of the Manchester Historic Association. You can reach him with your historical (or existential) questions at jclayton@manchesterhistoric.org.

 

 


 

Youemail box’re one click away! Sign up for our free eNewsletter and never miss another thing.

About this Author