Milliron Monday: Abbott Pliny Smith 1853-1943

Abbott "Pete" Smith, D.V.M.

June 16, 1938 - February 22, 2010

Welcome to Milliron Monday where every Monday we celebrate the legacy of Pete Smith, D.V.M., and  Milliron: Abbott “Pete” Smith, D.V.M. The Biography (Monday Creek Publishing 2017). A graduate of Colorado State University and a well-known veterinarian in southeast Ohio, Dr. Smith continues to motivate and inspire. 

March 18, 1943, Pete's great-grandfather, Abbott Pliny Smith, passed away. Abbott's life was full of adventure, hard work, family, travel, and philanthropy. Dying from complications of a broken hip, his life was recapped in the New Bedford, Massachusetts newspaper...

Abbott Smith, 89, Succumbs
Was Business, Civic Leader

     Abbott P. Smith, 89, of 95 Hawthorn Street, long prominent in New Bedford business and civic affairs, died about 9:30 this morning at St. Luke’s Hospital.

     Unusually hale [robust] for his age, Mr. Smith was downtown on business March 8 when he fell on a short flight of stairs in the rear of the First National Bank, suffering a broken hip. He apparently had been making good progress at the hospital. His death, Dr. William Rosen, medical examiner said, was due to complications. By unfortunate coincidences, Mrs. Smith had suffered a fractured hip, a fall at home the day before Mr. Smith’s accident. For years the junior of her husband, she reported to be getting along well.

     Mr. Smith was an outstanding figure for many years in the industrial development of New Bedford and the promotion of other business enterprises. He gradually had relinquished active business responsibilities in recent years, though he continued to maintain an office in the First National Bank Building and to spend some hours there daily.

     He still was president of New Bedford Storage Warehouse Company, which was the first important warehouse for cotton storages built in New Bedford. He had been a direction of various mills, was a former member of the Common Council, the Water Board and the Free Public Library trustees, and served many years as a trustee of New Bedford Textile School, and for eight years was president of the Textile School Board.

     Mr. Smith was born on a Westport farm, October 7, 1853, son of Henry and Ruth (Wilcox) Smith, and attended school in Westport. He left Westport High School in 1869 to take employment as a cash boy at $50 a year in the New Bedford dry goods store of Benjamin H. Waite. His pay was to be doubled at the end of the year if he made good.

     At the end of three months he found he could combine schooling and earning to good purpose by attending Friends School in Providence, now Moses Brown Academy. He studied there for 3 ½ years until June 1873 when his family moved to New Bedford.

Self-Taught

     His formal schooling ended, Mr. Smith continued his education by extensive travel in this county and abroad. Navigation was one of the arts he acquired, self-taught, in an experience voyage on a New Bedford sailing ship. Place names include recent war news dealing with Central Europe and the Near East recalled to him regions he visited as a young man.

     His lifelong interest in ships and marine affairs was stimulated by his background as well as his travels. His father was agent for several whaleships. The barks Greyhound and Mattapoisett were built by his grandfather in 1852. On his father’s death in 1873, Mr. Smith, a youth of 20, took over his father’s agencies. He spent 12 years in this phase of the whaling business.

     Most young men who lived in this vicinity in the whaling era looked forward to making at least one voyage, and MR. Smith was no exception. HE sailed Sept. 15, 1876, from Boston in the bark Azor, a packed ship carrying supplies to whaleships in the Azores and bringing back oil they wanted to send to New Bedford.

     Realizing he might never have another such opportunity, he extended his itinerary from one point to another – to Madeira, Lisbon, Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, Palestine, Constantinople, Russia, Slovakia, Holland, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, and other parts of Europe. He conducted a party during his Near East tour, manifesting thus early the spirit of enterprise which later was expressed in his many business undertakings.

Many Business Fields

     Beginning in 1880 with construction of houses and stores, MR. Smith progressed to larger enterprises. These comprised promotion of street railways, banks, and the Dartmouth, Soule, Butler, Kilburn, Taber, Quansett and Quissett Mills. His latest promotion was the Old Colony Silk Mills Corporation.

     Mr. Smith was a lifelong Republican. He was appointed chairman of a New England Commission on Foreign and Domestic Commerce by Calvin Coolidge, then Governor of Massachusetts.

     New Bedford Port Society presented MR. Smith a handlettered vote of appreciation of his service as president from 1927 to 1934, in which period more important celebrations were held by the society than in any other corresponding period of its history. He was active in promoting the production of the New Bedford Whaling film, Down to the Sea in Ships, and was president of the Whaling Film Corporation which produced it.

     Mr. Smith at the time of his death was a member of the Port Society, Boston Marine Society, Sons of the American Revolution, New Bedford Y.M.C.A., the National Geographic Society, the Wamsutta Club, Country Club of New Bedford, Brooks Club, Republican Club of Massachusetts, and a life member of Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants and the Old Dartmouth Historical Society. He attended Grace Episcopal Church.
     Besides the widow who was Sarah Metcalf of Boston before their marriage Jan. 15, 1879, survivors are a son, Abbott M. Smith of West Chester, Pa.; two daughters Mrs. Arthur D. Delano of New Bedford and Mrs. Ruth Smith [Pete’s grandmother] of Boston; eight grandsons of whom three now are in the armed services; one granddaughter, seven great-grandchildren, and several nieces and nephews. 

Have a great week ahead.

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Milliron: The Biography

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www.mondaycreekpublishing.com

Through captivating, powerful, and emotional anecdotes, we celebrate the life of Dr. Abbott P. Smith. His biography takes the reader from smiles to laughter to empathy and tears. Dr. Smith gave us compelling lessons learned from animals; the role animals play in the human condition, the joy of loving an animal, and the awe of their spirituality. A tender and profound look into the life of a skilled veterinarian.