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"Spokane and The Spokane Country - Pictorial and Biographical - Deluxe Supplement." Vol. II. The S.J. Clarke Publishing Company, 1912. (No author listed.) pgs. 88-92.
FRANK L. SMITH is known to the business world through his mining interests,
for he is now closely associated with the development of the rich coal
deposits of British Columbia, operating extensively along modern lines. Judged
only from a business standpoint, his life work would be considered of worth in
this connection, but his activities have been of far wider range in his
efforts to uplift humanity and bring into the lives of his fellowmen those
higher ideals which result in the development of individual character. His
life has come into close and beneficial contact with many others, as he has
labored not only in this country and in our insular possessions but also in
Great Britain for the benefit of his fellowmen in the dissemination of those
truths which are a higher and holier force in the world.He was born in New
York city, February 18, 1848. His ancestral history can be traced back to the
Cromwellian period, for the family are descended from Lord Stephen Smith, who
was a member of Cromwell's parliament. His father, Elias Smith, was born in
Providence, Rhode Island, and died about 1891. He was recognized as a very
prominent war correspondent and newspaper man of New York and was associated
with Horace Greeley in journalistic enterprises. He became one of the famous
newspaper correspondents at the time of the Civil war and was held in high
regard by the press of New York city, the chief journalists of the metropolis
giving him the credit of being a real historian of that great conflict. He
served on the staff of General Burnside and came into close touch with the
events that constituted the real history of the civil strife. He scored many
"scoops" as correspondent during the days of the war, and the first news which
the war department had of the fall of Vicksburg was a dispatch which Elias
Smith sent. He practically gave all of his life to newspaper work and was city
editor of the New York Times. He was an intimate friend of Henry Ward Beecher
and knew many of the leading journalists and distinguished men of the day. His
wife, who bore the maiden name of Sarah R. Miller, is of English lineage and a
descendant of Roger Williams, the first governor of Rhode Island. Her father
was the founder of the Providence Journal and was a prominent political
leader.
In the family of Mr. and Mrs. Elias Smith were three sons: Frank L.;
E. C., who is now engaged in mining in Mexico; and Alva M., who is a newspaper
man of the south. Frank L. Smith pursued his education in the public schools
and in Fairchild's Academy at Flushing, Long Island. He was still a youth in
his teens when he did active duty as a member of the Fifty-sixth Regiment of
Volunteers of the New York National Guard during the riots at the docks. He
entered business life as a commercial traveler in the employ of an uncle and
afterward was engaged in business in Galveston, Texas, until 1867. While there
residing he was married, in May, 1866, to Miss Charlotte Higgins, of Keyport,
New Jersey, a daughter of Charles Higgins, one of the most prominent men of
that district, who at that time owned all the stage routes out of Freehold.
Unto Mr. and Mrs. Smith have been born seven children, of whom four are yet
living: Edward W., a resident of San Francisco; Ernest, who is living in
Sebastopol, California; Judson, a pharmacist of Spokane; and Lottie M., the
wife of Rev. Alfred Lockwood, who for five years was the predecessor of Dean
Hicks of All Saints cathedral and is now rector of the church at North Yakima.
On leaving Galveston, Mr. Smith went to Bloomington, Illinois, where
he was connected with the railroad service until 1874, when he was made
assistant treasurer of the Indianapolis, Bloomington & Western Railroad, now a
branch of the Big Four. He won advancement from the position of office clerks
to assistant treasurer in the general office and remained with the road until
it changed hands. Becoming deeply interested in religious work, he afterward
spent a number of years in important positions in connection with the Young
Men's Christian Association. He was also engaged in evangelistic work and held
missions not only all over the United States but also in England, Scotland and
Ireland, conducting a very interesting campaign in behalf of moral progress on
the other side of the water. The meetings which he held were all by
invitation, for his reputation spread and he became known as an earnest,
zealous worker in his church. He continued in the evangelistic field until the
Spanish war, when he conducted Christian work among the camps of the south, at
Camp Lee, Jacksonville, and at Savannah. He afterward continued his labors in
this connection on the island of Porto Rico and assisted General Henry in
distributing relief. He instituted his religious work in Porto Rico at the
time the troops were first sent to San Juan, conducting this labor under the
auspices of the international committee of the Young Men's Christian
Association. He afterward took part in instituting similar work among the
United States sailors but eventually removed to the northwest. Here he has
been connected with a number of important business enterprises and is now
secretary-treasurer of the Boundary Mining & Exploration Company, Limited, of
which Dr. C. M. Kingston is the president and S. J. Miller vice president. In
addition to the officers, F. H. Knight and A. H. Noyes are members of the
board of directors. The object of this company is to develop the coal
properties of Midway, British Columbia, consisting of crown-granted property
of six hundred acres and other tracts. They have over one thousand feet in
tunnels and drifts and shafts and several hundred feet of the mines have
beendeveloped. They are now beginning to sink a developing shaft to strike two
veins of coal, one to be reached at a depth of one hundred and ten feet and
the other of one hundred and seventy feet. They have several well defined
veins in tunnel, five feet in width. Their coal is of the bituminous kind and
they are now prospecting for semi-anthracite. This is a good blacksmith coal
and took first prize at the Interstate Fair. The work of development is being
vigorously prosecuted and the company will make its initial shipments in 1912.
They have two lines of railroad over the property, the Canadian Pacific and
the Great Northern, affording them remarkably good shipping facilities.
While Mr. Smith is proving his worth as an enterprising, progressive
business man, capable and determined, he at the same time continues his labors
in behalf of moral progress and as an evangelist has held misions in every
state of the Union except Wyoming and Nevada, working largely along
undenominational lines. He has served as state evangelist for the
Congregational church of California. At Ellensburg he joined the Episcopal
church, was confirmed, worked as a layman under Bishop Wells and conducted
services as a layman. During 1908 he was called to the management of the
Ondarra Inn in Spokane, an institution for the help of the unemployed, and
succeeded in making this great work self-supporting. A free employment bureau
provided work for about eight hundred men each month and thousands of men were
sheltered and fed. Religious services were held and lectures given by
prominent men. The property was purchased in 1910, by the North Coast Railroad
to be used as a union depot and the work discontinued. Rev. W. L. Bull, an
episcopal clergyman, was the owner and he, with Right Rev. Lemuel H. Wells,
bishop of the diocese, were the instigators and responsible for the work. He
now connected with St. James parish and had charge of the work at St. John's
church for one year. He presented a confirmation class of five to the
bishop-rather an unusual thing for a layman. His efforts have been a most
efficient force for good in the districts where he has labored and the radius
of his influence is far reaching. In politics Mr. Smith is an independent
republican, while fraternally he is connected with the Modern Woodmen and the
Red Men, being now a trustee of Comanche Tribe. He also belongs to the Inland
Club and in connection with Senator Poindexter and others organized the
Fellowship Club, which has been very active in the discussion of public
subjects, thus creating public opinion and largely influencing public work. He
has ever regarded life as an opportunity-an opportunity for the development of
the trifold nature of man-and has therefore labored to bring to the highest
perfection possible the physical, mental and moral forces of the world. He has
ever reached out in helpful spirit and sympathy toward all mankind and his is
one of the natures that sheds around it much of the sunshine of life.
Submitted by: Nancy Pratt Melton
* * * * Notice: These biographies were transcribed for the Washington Biographies Project. Unless otherwise stated, no further information is available on the individuals featured in the biographies.