PREFACE.

In the preparation of this memoir I have necessarily been confined within a very narrow compass. While all about me lay a wealth of material, yet, from the very nature of my task, I have been obliged to use but a very small portion of it. I have, therefore, frequently found myself more embarrassed than if there had been a greater lack of it. The problem with me was what to use and what to reject. That I have chosen wisely, I do not pretend to say, but I have selected that which, in my judgment, seemed best suited to my purpose. I leave untouched a store of interesting anecdote, rich personal experience, and profitable instruction. I make little mention of the golden words that fell ever from his lips, many of which are treasured in my memory; nor of the sublime thoughts that came from his pen, much of which manuscript is in my possession. All this may find its place when, some day, the story of Nathaniel B. Smithers's life shall be more fully told.

W. T. S.

DOVER, DELAWARE, August 17, 1898.

MEMOIR

OF

NATHANIEL B. SMITHERS.

NATHANIEL BARRATT SMITHERS was born in Dover, Delaware, October 8, 1818, in the house which is now the dwelling of Chancellor John R. Nicholson. His parents were Nathaniel Smithers and Susan Fisher Barratt. Of this marriage there were eight children born, all of whom died in infancy, except the subject of this memoir, and a younger brother, Edward F. Smithers, who became a prominent physician, and settled at Vienna, in Dorchester County, Maryland, where he died in 1862. His father, a gentleman of sterling integrity and dignified manners, held the offices of Prothonotary and Clerk of the Peace in Kent County. His grandfather, also named Nathaniel, was Register of Wills in Kent County. He was an influential and Christian gentleman, and, as one of the early Methodists, introduced Freeborn Garrettson. His paternal grandmother was Esther Beauchamp, whose brother, William Beauchamp, is distinguished in the annals of Western Methodism. His ancestors on his father's side, before the Revolution, came into the "Lower Counties on Delaware" from Kent County,

Maryland, into which colony they had emigrated from England.

His mother was the daughter of Dr. Elijah Barratt, of Camden, Delaware. She was a most estimable woman, whose nobility of character, gentleness of disposition, and grace of mind, endeared her to all who knew her. Dr. Barratt, his maternal grandfather, was a polished and courteous gentleman, and was of high repute as a physician. He was the son of Philip Barratt, who resided near Frederica, and owned the tract of land on which Barratt's Chapel was built, and in testimony of whose liberality it was named. In this chapel was the first meeting of Coke and Asbury, from which impetus was given to the advancement of Methodism. Andrew Barratt, another son of Philip Barratt, was one of the judges of the State, and a member of the convention which ordained the Constitution of 1792.

His maternal grandmother was Margaret, daughter of Edward Fisher and Susanna Bowman, and through her father lineally descended from John Fisher, who came from England with William Penn in 1682. He settled at Lewes, and his son Thomas married Margery Maud, daughter of Joshua Maud, of Yorkshire, England. They were of the persuasion of Friends, and many of their descendants still adhere to and exemplify its habits and principles.

Nathaniel B. Smithers was early sent to school in Dover, and his first teacher was one Ezra Scovell. His advancement in his books was marked and rapid from the start. He was both studious and quick to learn. At an age when few children have mastered the primer, he was dealing with the higher branches of education, and was fully launched

upon a life of systematic study, which he quietly and unobtrusively pursued to the end. At the age of five years we find him being instructed in Latin, and repeating passages from Virgil, when most children are prattling nursery rhymes.

It was about this time that the first cloud floated across the pathway of his life, the death of his mother. Young as he was, he felt the loss keenly, and to his dying day he remembered the gloom that pervaded that household, and the grief that filled his heart on that evening in March, 1824, when death entered the home, and took away, in the thirtieth year of her age, his tender, devoted mother. In the course of time his father married again, the lady being Rachel E. Clayton, the daughter of Dr. James L. Clayton, to whom Nathaniel B. Smithers became very much attached, and who died at her home in Elkton, Maryland, only a few years prior to his own death.

When he was about eleven years old he removed with his father to Bohemia Manor, in Cecil County, Maryland, and soon afterwards was placed in West Nottingham Academy, then under the direction of Dr. James Magraw, an eminent Presbyterian minister. Here he made rapid progress, and in the spring of 1834, being but little more than fifteen years old, he was matriculated at Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania, which had just been founded, under the presidency of the Rev. George Junkin, a learned and distinguished Presbyterian minister. Here his progress was so great that it was not long before one of the faculty of that institution publicly declared that he was no longer able to teach the young student any more Latin. From this