Administrative Information

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Preferred Citation

Papers of Elizabeth Oakes Prince Smith, Accession #38-707, Special Collections, University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Acquisition Information

The collection was purchased from Miss Geraldine Oaksmith of New Port, North Caroline, in July 1935. Miss Oaksmith later withdrew ten letters written by Sarah Helen Whitman and sold them privately. This original correspondence was replaced by photostatic copies. The entire collection was then accessioned on December 4, 1967, and bears no restrictions.

Biographical/Historical Information

Elizabeth Oakes (Prince) Smith, author, lecturer and reformer, was born in North Yarmouth, Maine, in 1806. She was raised with strict religious discipline by her parents, David and Sophia (Blanchard) Prince. The family moved to Portland, Maine, in 1814 and there, in deference to her mother's wishes, Elizabeth abandoned her plan for a higher education and a career as a director of a school for girls and married newspaper editor and political satirist Seba Smith in 1823.

Elizabeth devoted the early years of their marriage to raising her family. Their fortune was lost when Smith fell victim to the land boom which culminated in the panic of 1837. The family moved to Charleston, South Carolina, in 1839, where Smith hoped to regain his losses by selling cotton cleaning machines to planters. This venture failed and they moved to New York where they lived until 1860.

This move proved to be the start of Elizabeth's long and notable public career as a writer. To assist her husband she began to contribute sketches, essays, and poems to the popular periodicals of the day, such as Ladies' Companion , Southern Literary Messenger , Godey's Lady's Book and Graham's American Monthly Magazine . Her poem, "The Sinless Child," (1834), drew wide acclaim from critics such as Edgar Allan Poe and Rufus Wilmot Griswold. Many of her works were penned under the pseudonym Ernest Helfenstein.

In addition to her poetry, she wrote seven novels, had two of her plays produced, and authored many short stories and children's stories. Her writings, which often portrayed religious and sentimental themes, became tremendously popular; one novel, Bald Eagle , was a best seller in Beadle's dime novel series.

Oakes Smith's articles in support of woman suffrage, written for the New York Tribune in 1850, launched her successful career as a lyceum lecturer from 1851 to 1857. Social and moral issues dominated her public speaking. She argued for temperance and equal suffrage and lectured on the social ills of advancing capitalism and slothfulness and the necessity of religious faith. In 1877 she served as the minister of the Independent Church in Canastota, New York. She continued with her writing throughout her later life, adding such publications as Ladies Home Journal , Baldwin's Monthly , The Cosmopolitan , Portland Transcript , Woman's Words , Truth and The Great Republic Monthly to the long list of journals which clamored for her contributions.

Fourteen years her senior, Elizabeth's husband Seba Smith (1792-1868) was also a native of Maine. He graduated from Bowdoin College in 1818 and was working as assistant editor of the Eastern Argus , an important Democratic newspaper in Portland, Maine, when he wed Elizabeth Oakes Prince. Smith achieved notoriety by writing daily letters in the newspaper under the pseudonym Major Jack Downing, a Yankee adventurer who drew attention to current national events by satirically criticizing the administrations of President Andrew Jackson.

Smith used the newspaper which he founded in 1829, Maine's first daily, the Portland Courier , as a vehicle for publishing these letters. They were first reprinted in Boston and later circulated throughout New England. Smith soon gained a national audience and in 1833 the letters were published in a volume entitled The Life and Writings of Major Jack Downing of Downingville . Smith published his second series of Jack Downing letters in the Daily National Intelligencer (Washington, D.C.) starting in 1847. They appeared in book from along with the best of his earlier letters under the title My Thirty Years Out of the Senate in 1859.

Smith published articles and verse in a variety of popular journals of the day, most notably Southern Literary Messenger and Ralph Waldo Emerson's United States Magazine . His most famous works aside from the Downing letters include the epic verse "Powhatan" (1841) and an original mathematics dissertation entitled New Elements of Geometry (1850). The Smiths moved to Patchogue, Long Island, in 1860 where Smith retired from public life.

Elizabeth and Seba had four sons between 1828 and 1836. The children bore the name Oaksmith, a change made in the early years of their marriage. Appleton, their eldest son, was a ship broker and head of an importing house in Brussels called Frear Et Cie. He also served for a brief time as the United States foreign minister to Nicaragua. Appleton and his second wife, Augusta, resided with their many children in Hollywood, North Carolina, where Elizabeth lived much of the time after her husband's death in 1868.

Another son, Edward, shared his parents literary interests and worked as a writer and drama critic of the London Mercury where he authored his own plays and short stories as well. Sidney, a lawyer given to adventure, worked as a commercial agent at Porte-Au-Prince, Haiti. In 1869 he was lost at sea while he was in command of a U.S. gun boat on a voyage to Haiti. Not much is known about a fourth son, Alvin, who apparently was a farmer in Maryland and was beset by many troubles-heavy debts, a sickly wife and his own lameness (Alvin Oaksmith to Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Nov. 14, 1893).

All the sons married and letters from their many children appear throughout Elizabeth Oakes Smith's correspondence. The Oaksmith family seemed prone to misfortune and experienced an unusually high number of calamities and tragic deaths. Sidney's disappearance in the Caribbean is a prime example. His brother Edward was stricken with malaria in Cuba and died in 1865. Appleton was attacked with spears and arrows by Africans when his party attempted to navigate the Congo River. He survived the attack, but in 1879 a small boat that he was commanding in Beaufort Harbor near his coastal home in North Carolina capsized with six of his children aboard. His four eldest daughters drowned in this July 4th boating accident. Several other grandchildren died at an early age. Elizabeth outlived much of her family, and died on November 15, 1893 in North Carolina and was buried at Patchogue.

Scope and Content Information

The Oakes Smith collection consists of ca. 4,000 items (7 boxes, ca. 3.5 linear shelf feet), 1823-1894, and includes correspondence, diaries, literary manuscripts, essays, lectures, and newspaper columns of Elizabeth Oakes Smith. Also included are letters and papers of her husband Seba Smith, her sons and their families, scrapbooks, journals, photographs, and printed items. Mrs. Oakes Smith's extensive correspondence (1833-1893) with many important literary figures of the day, combined with her succinct essays, lectures and columns on women's rights are the principle strengths of this collection. In addition, her correspondence with her children and grandchildren, especially her exchange with her daughter-in-law Augusta Oaksmith, offers a colorful portrait of family life in the mid-to late nineteenth century.

Mrs. Oakes Smith's chief personal and literary correspondents included Elizabeth Bogart, D. C. Colesworthy, Augustus Whittemore Corliss, Thomas Amory Deblois, Mary Forrest (Julia Deane Freemen), Sallie Holley, C. A. Munson, Francis Springer, C. B. Stout and Sarah Helen Whitman. Also included are letters from notable publishers, poets, writers and editors including Edward William Bok, Epes Sargent, Prentice Brooks, Lydia Sigourney, William Fosdick, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Horace Greeley, and Edmund Clarence Stedman.

Mrs. Oakes Smith also exchanged correspondence with distinguished clergymen and educators including Rev. Carroll Cutler, Frederic Henry Hedge and Bishop Abraham Newkirk Littlejohn; suffragists Elizabeth Smith Miller and Lucretia Mott; abolitionist Cassius Marcellus Clay, and P. T. Barnum. A complete list of her correspondents and the dates of their letters is located at the end of this guide. There is also a great deal of family correspondence, 1851-1894, chiefly letters of members of her son Appleton Oaksmith's family, Appleton's business correspondence, and Mrs. Oakes Smith's correspondence with her husband. Much of this correspondence concerns Appleton's imprisonment in 1862 on a charge of slave trading and Mrs. Oakes Smith's attempts to free him.

The bulk of the collection, however, is comprised of Mrs. Oakes Smith's literary manuscripts. First known for her romantic verse, a number of her poems and sonnets appear in this collection and concern such subjects as nature, historical figures, and the supernatural. Her verse became increasingly religious as time went on and was typically sentimental. She was especially deft at writing poems of tribute to loved ones who had passed away.

In addition, the collection includes four diaries, 1857-1868, and one journal, 1877-1879, the latter primarily containing poems and quotations. Mrs. Oakes Smith's diary for 1863 contains a lengthy eye witness account of the New York draft riots. There is a good run of sermons delivered from March to October 1877, and seventeen essays, chiefly concerning literary subjects such as books, authors, or the role of the poet. Also included are essays on religious topics, the origins of evil and the plight of women in a society dominated by men.

The need for equality between the sexes was a constant theme in Mrs. Oakes Smith's writing. It is most evident here in her essays "History of the Amazons," "Woman the Inferior," and "The First Bond," and in her lectures bearing such titles as "Biology and Women's Rights," "The Dignity of Labor," "Margaret Fuller" (whom she greatly admired), and "Womanhood."

There are two of Mrs. Oakes Smith's plays in the collection: Destiny , a tragedy set in Italy, and Roman Tribute , which includes separate scripts for each role. There is also an incomplete version of her play, Old New York , which includes her notes. Mrs. Oakes Smith wrote short stories and novels, but most examples included are untitled; several deal with colonial Maine and the early settlers of that region.

Seba Smith's correspondence, 1823-1868, consists of letters from publishers, mathematicians, and friends. A major correspondent is Samuel Elliot Coues who writes to Smith about his new ideas in astronomy and mathematics and thanks him for his constant scientific support. Another letter from author and playwright, Epes Sargent, congratulates Smith on his latest work, the poem "Powhatan."

Most of Smith's correspondence, however, is with Boston publishing and printing firms including Lilly, Waite and Co. (publishers of an edition of "Major Jack Downing's" letters, a newspaper column written by Seba Smith); Gales and Seaton; Light and Morton, and English publisher, Richard Bentley. These letters generally consist of requests for new writings by Smith, reports on books or articles being published, or discussions of payment. Drafts of Smith's letters to these companies are occasionally interspersed. In one dated 1852, Smith asks Gales and Seaton for some help in material aid," adding that he "would not require as much as the King of Hungary" but that "it was getting quite difficult to get along."

Included is a letter from the famous mathematician and philosopher, Auguste Comte, who wrote to Smith concerning his own mathematical investigations and said he was looking forward to reading Smith's study, New Elements of Geometry (1850).

There is little correspondence between Smith and his family included here. There is a letter from Appleton telling his father about his divorce from his first wife; also included are letters to both Appleton and Edward from their father which detail his health and work.

Seba Smith's other papers consist mainly of poems, short stories, newspaper columns, and reviews of his books and lectures. Also included are manuscript volumes. One dated 1862-1863 contains handwritten poems by Smith. Lost and suffering children is the theme of another collection of poems by Smith, entitled "Scattered Waifs of Half a Century"; it includes his commentary on poems by other individuals on the same subject. The newspaper columns consist of incomplete runs of Smith's "Major Jack Downing" letters and another series of columns where he wrote as Solomon Swop, editor of "Sol Swop's Column" which offered advice in a satirical vein.

Included among Smith's papers was a packet of material labeled "These are valuable in presenting to the public the life of Seba Smith." This information has been filed under the heading "Material re New Elements of Geometry " and includes correspondence regarding his book, lists of persons receiving an author's copy, numerous reviews and accounts of lectures on the book, and on mathematics in general.

Critical reviews of the text appeared between 1850 and 1851 in the New York Tribune , the National Intelligiencer , and Literary World , among others, where the accuracy of Smith's findings was constantly discussed and often challenged. Some labeled his work "intellectual boldness" while others said that it clearly betrayed basic geometric truths. Smith lectured widely on the book, and newspaper reports of his public speeches are included.

Also contained in the collection is a manuscript of his lecture delivered at the American Institute in New York City on January 21, 1851, in which Parker disagreed with Seba's mathematic premises.

Edward and Appleton Oaksmith and Appleton's eldest daughter Bessie are best represented in the group of family manuscripts. The collection includes two books of verse by Appleton together with his essays, poems, and short stories. Edward's personal journal from 1855-1856 is also included and contains poetry, diary entries, and essays, many concerning his religious experiences. Bessie's papers include numerous poems and compositions on such topics as Country life, pets, and the proper behavior of a young girl. During 1873 she kept a diary which provides a good account of her family's life. Also of interest are two phrenological character analyses from 1859 and 1866 prepared for Sidney Oaksmith and his French passport dated 1860.

The collection also contains three scrapbooks which primarily consist of printed material concerning the Oaksmith family. Included are poems by various members of the family, articles, newspaper clippings, and obituaries. One scrapbook, dated 1868-1888, contains poems and essays written by Seba Smith, Elizabeth Oakes Smith, and Edward and Appleton Oaksmith, and was probably kept by Augusta Oaksmith. Also included are several detailed newspaper accounts of the drowning deaths of Appleton's four daughters. The other scrapbooks consist of poetry by other individuals, probably collected by Elizabeth.

There is a great deal of printed material in this collection, primarily newspaper clippings concerning family members, biographical information on Elizabeth, miscellaneous poems, short stories, and articles, and several photographs and drawings of the Sicily Islands by a friend of Edward.

Arrangement

Arrangement

The correspondence series is arranged chronologically within each subdivision. An exception to this is Elizabeth Oakes Smith's correspondence with members of her family which is first divided according to correspondent.

The literary manuscripts have a more complex arrangement. Mrs. Oakes Smith's manuscripts have been divided according to literary form with poems followed by lectures, speeches, and essays. These are arranged in alphabetical order by title. Following her autograph poems are folders of untitled poems, printed verse, and poetry fragments.

These manuscripts are followed by sections of plays, short stories, novels, sermons, diaries, and journals. Because most of these manuscripts are untitled, they have been arranged chronologically. The newspaper columns by Elizabeth Oakes Smith come next, with the topic of the articles listed on the folder heading where possible. Within this topical arrangement the columns are organized chronologically. A small section of miscellaneous manuscripts rounds out this sub-series.

Seba Smith's manuscripts are grouped in the following subseries: poems, short stories, material concerning his geometry text, and newspaper columns. The Oaksmith family material, which consists of literary manuscripts, pamphlets, notebooks, and other writings of the Oaksmith children and grandchildren, is arranged alphabetically by the name of the author.

In most cases the miscellaneous literary manuscripts are undated and bear no author identification. There is a novella and a play followed by short stories, poems, and fragments of poems.

The scrapbooks are arranged in chronological order and are followed by folders containing loose material removed from the books. The bulk of the printed material in Series IV consists of newspaper clippings. Subjects have been determined for some groups of clippings and the folders containing the topical clippings are in chronological order followed by folders of miscellaneous newspaper clippings. Photographs, drawings, circular letters, handbills, and other printed material are filed behind the clippings.

Organization

The Oakes Smith collection is comprised of four series: I. Correspondence, II. Literary Manuscripts, III, Scrapbooks and IV. Miscellaneous and Printed Material, and is subdivided as follows:

I. Correspondence
-Personal and Literary Correspondence of Elizabeth Oakes Smith
-Correspondence of Elizabeth Oakes Smith with her family.
-Correspondence of Seba Smith
-Oaksmith Family Correspondence

II. Literary Manuscripts
-Elizabeth Oakes Smith
-Seba Smith
-Oaksmith Family
-Miscellaneous

III. Scrapbooks.

IV. Miscellaneous and Printed Material

List of Correspondents

Akers, Benjamin Paul, 1825-61. 1844 Mar 1
Babbit, E. D.. 1886 Sep 5
B[aker], Anne C. L. . 1871 June 28
Barnum, Phineas Taylor. 1855 Mar 20
Baron, Ellen. 1850 July 14
Bok, Edward William, 1863-1930. 1882 May 4, 1882 Sep 19
Brooks, Erastus. 1867 Mar 10
Bryan, Washington. 1890 July 12
Buchanan, James R.. n.y. Jan 26, n.y. May 28
Bogart, Elizabeth. 1837 July 9, 1847 June 15, 1849 July 24, 1849 Sep 24, n.d.
Campbell, Helen. 1883 Dec 10, 1883 Dec 21, 1886 Sep 5
Childs, G[eorge] W[illiam], 1829-1894. 1871 June 22
Clark, M[yron] H[olley], 1806-1892. 1855 July 26, 1855 July 30
Clay, Cassius Marcellus . 1852 Apr 11
Cobb, James T.. 1883 May 17
Cutler, Rev. G. W.. 1879 June 8
Colesworthy, D. C.. 1873 May 22, June 3, July 22
Colesworthy, D. C.. 1873 Oct 8, Nov 10, 1875 Apr 8, Sep 6, 1876 May 13
Cooke, James O'Neill. 1865 Sep 23, 1866 Mar 24
Corliss, Augustus Whittemore. 1875 Aug 9, 1875 Sep 30, 1875 Oct 31, 1876 Jan 8, 1876 Jan 10, 1876 Apr 20, 1876 May 7
Deblois, Thomas Amory. 1843 Feb 5, 1844 Jan 11, 1849 Aug 22, 1849 Sep 14, 1850 Dec 29, 1852 Mar 21.
Dean, Edwin. 1853 Dec 8
De Windts, Caroline A.. 1844 Nov 22
Derby and Jackson Publishers. 1859 Feb 17
Fish, Hamilton. 1870 Feb 14
Forrest, Mary [Julia Deane Freeman]. 1859 May 6, 1859 June 22, 1859 July 7, 1859 July 19, 1859 Aug 9, 1863 Dec 14, 1864 June 23, 1866 May 30, n.d.
Fosdick, William W[hiteman]. 1857 Sep 23
Fulton, W. Charles. 1866 Feb 2
Godey, Louis Antoine, 1804-1878. 1839 Jul 11
Greeley, Horace, 1811-1872. 1853 Sep 21
Griswold, Rufus, Wilmont, 1815-1857. 1842 Jun 15
Hale, John K. . 1855 July 30
Hall, Thomas. 1893 Sep 9
Hosltead, George B.. 1866 Feb 3
Hecker, John. 1867 Sep 27
Hedge, Frederic Henry, 1805-1890. 1851 Aug 27
Holbrook, Lucy L.. 1889 Nov 9
Holley, Sallie. 1884 May 4, 1884 Sep 5, 1885 Aug 2, 1885 Sep 30, 1889 May 27, 1891 July 23, 1892 May 15, 1892 Dec 21
Holmes, Oliver Wendell. 1857 Apr 27
Hull, John T.. 1886 July 17
Jarvis, Elsie P. L.. 1878 Feb 1
Jarvis, Helen M. 1878 Feb 1, 1882 Oct 3, 1888 Oct 21, n.d.
Lewis, Anna. 1848 Nov 27
Littlejohn, Bishop Abraham Newkirk. 1873 Jan 21
Locke, John G.. 1859 Mar 13
Lossing, Benson John, 1813-1891. 1854 Jan 19
Lucas, John. 1878 Dec 16
Matthews, Cettie M.. 1865 Sep 12
Maguire, H. N.. 1886 Aug 24
Mellon, George. 1879 Sep
Miller, Elizabeth Smith. 1886 Dec 26
Mott, Lucretia (Coffin), 1793- 1880. 1852, according to Beverly Wilson Palmer, editor of Lucretia Mott correspondence
Mowatt, Ana Cora, 1819-1870. 1853 May 27
Munson, C. A.. 1875 Feb 16, 1875 Jul 12, 1875 Aug 8, 1875 Sep 19, 1875 Nov 29, 1875 Oct 31, 1876 Jan 7, 1876 May 17, 1879 Feb 18, 1879 Feb 25, 1879 Jul 3, n.d.
Newton, Howard. 1891 May 16
O'Leary, Helen B.. 1888 Feb 11
Okes, Paul. 1844 Mar 1
O'Reilley, B.. 1860 Feb 10, 1860 Mar 13
Osborn, Samuel. n.d.
Parker, John. 1851
Dom Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil. 1879 May
Percival, C. S.. 1854 Mar 27
Perry, George. 1896 Jun 16
Roquette, Adrian. 1869 Aug 31
Sargent, Epes, 1830-1880. 1870 Aug 20, 1890 Sep 8, 1896 Oct 20
Schoolcraft, Mary. 1858 Jul 26
Shippen, Rush R.. 1878 Feb 9
Sigourney, Lydia Howard. 1847 Nov 20, 1848 May 1, 1849 May 1, 1851 Jun 4
Silsbee, William. 1878 May 7, 1879 Jun 9
Smedley, A. B.. 1868 Sep 8
Springer, Francis. 1880 Dec 13, 1880 Jan 13, 1881 Mar 23, 1881 Jun 2, 1881 Jun 29, 1881 Oct 26, 1881 Sep 12, 1883 Aug 9, 1884 Feb 6, 1884 Apr 1, 1885 Jan 8, 1885 Mar 26, 1886 Nov 30, 1887 Jan 4, 1887 Feb 9, 1888 Aug 9
Stedman, Edmund Clarence. 1888 Jan 20, 1888 Mar 29
Stout, C. B.. 1872 Jan, 1872 Feb 21, 1872 Aug 9, 1872 Aug 16, 1872 Aug 29, 1873 Dec 31, 1874 Jan 23, 1874 Jan 29, 1874 Mar 4, 1874 Mar 16, 1874 Mar 26, 1874 Apr 2, 1874 Apr 2, 1874 Apr 15, 1874 Apr 23, 1874 Sep 7, 1875 May 27, 1875 Jun 28, 1875 Jul 30, 1875 Sep 6, 1876 Jan 5, 1876 Jan 21, 1876 Mar 11, 1876 Apr 4, 1876 Apr 6, 1876 May 2, 1876 May 22, 1876 Jun 5, 1891 Feb 9
Ware, L. M.. 1842 Oct 10, 1844 Jun, 1846 Dec 25, 1846 Apr, 1847 Mar 15, 1848 Mar 28, 1850 Feb 20
Warren, Edwin R.. 1854 Jan 27
Webster, Daniel. 1852 Aug 17
Whitman, Sarah Helen (Power), 1833-1878. 1856 May 15, [1858] Dec 3, 1859 Sep [18], 1860 Feb 21, n.d. (4)
Whitehurst, M. E.. 1888 Aug 8
Wright, S. A.. 1859 Mar 13