Hobart College - Echo of the Seneca Yearbook (Geneva, NY)

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Prof. H. L. Smith It is with, great pleasure that we dedicate this volume of the JCcflo to Professor H. L. Smith, Hobart’s Senior Professor; and knowing the deep interest that all connected with Hobart feel in him, we have gotten together a few facts connected with his life and work that may aid to show how well he deserves that interest. Hamilton Lanphere Smith was born at New London, Connecti cut, Nov. th, i8t8. Here he lived- until he was sixteen years old when he entered, as freshman, the class of ’39, Yale. Even in his school-boy years he began to show an aptitude for scientific and mathematical pursuits and constructed a telescope of no small size with which lie made some tolerably accurate observations. These school-boy tendencies were encouraged by liis father who presented him, upon his entering college, with a large and handsome telescope. Many of his classmates are men well known in the world. Among them may be mentioned Kbenezer P. Mason, Charles Bristed, author of ‘'Four Years at an English University Ilenry K. Coppee, Professor of Literature at' Lehigh University; Senator Henry L. Dawes ; Henry R. Jackson, once U. S. Minister to Austria ; J. G. Lamed, afterwards Professor at Yale; Chas. J. Stille, Provost of University of Perm., and Rev. Francis ■Wharton, Professor at Kenyon and afterwards at Cambridge Theological Seminary, the two last mentioned being the authors of the standard work on criminal jurisprudence. Contemporaneous with him were Senator W. M. Evarts, David Tappan Stoddard, who died at Ooromialr, Persia, and the Rev. Dr. J. P. Thomson. Ebeuezer Porter Mason, who died in 1840 and whose biography has been written by Prof. Olinstead, and Mr. Swhth were class friends, doing much of their astronomical work together and at one time having entire charge of the Yale observatory. Their observations of Hal- ley’s comet received special notice among the leading scientific journals of the day and those on certain nebulae, published in the transactions of the American Academy of Science at Philadelphia, were highly commended by Sir John Herschel, as beiug the most reliable nebulas observations given up to that time. These observations were all made with a telescope constructed 4

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To our loved and respected senior professor, HAMILTON LANPHERE SMITH, this volume is affectionately dedicated as a token o{ our esteem.

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by Mr. Smith during his last term at college and which was then the largest telescope in America. Owing to business reverses his father was compelled to withdraw' him from college during the last term of his Sophomore year. The family had moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where Mr. Smith went into business with his father. Here he studied out of business hours, keeping up with his class at Yale and finally, when he was enabled to return to college, he re-entered with his class in its senior year, passing all his examinations on back work and graduating with the class in 1839. During his senior year he was elected a member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences. After leaving Yale he returned to Cleveland and remained there for ten years in the forwarding and commission business but never lost his interest in the sciences and still kept up his researches in microscopy, astronomy, geology, etc. He also, experimented in photography, producing some of the first Daguerreotypes, using for a camera merely a cigar box and spectacle lenses. Even with this primitive apparatus he was very successful and subsequently he invented the so-called, tin-types. During his stay in Cleveland he was elected to membership iu several scientific societies, both at home and abroad and, moreover, published a number of scientific articles and treatises which made him well known it) the scientific world. ■ He prepared also, a text book—“A Natural Philosophy for the Use of Schools and Academies,” published first at Cleveland and subsequently in New York, which was accepted and widely used by the schools of the country. Another geological and astronomical work—11 The World,” was published soon after and reached a sale in this country of six thousand copies. His telescopic work, meanwhile, was not being neglected for we find him mentioned by Prof. Loomis of Yaie in “The Progress of Modern Astronomy ”. as being the first in this country to discover the comet of 1844, Sept. 10th. While in Cleveland he was active in founding the Cleveland Academy of Science, now the Kirkland Academy, and in encour- aging the sciences to the. best of his ability, and was elected Professor of Chemistry at one of the medical colleges. In 1850 he gave up the produce business and entered the book establish- ment of Smith, Knight Co. Two years later he accepted the call to the chair of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at Kenyon College, Gambler, Ohio. Here he was in his proper element and devoted his time to his studies and duties there until 186S, when he accepted the call to the chair of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy at Hobart. While at Kenyon Prof. Smith constructed there the then largest telescope in America. It had a reflector twenty-five inches in diameter and was twenty-five feet long. 5