1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Smith, Francis Hopkinson

SMITH, FRANCIS HOPKINSON (1838-), American author, artist and engineer, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on the 23rd of October 1838, a descendant of Francis Hopkinson, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He became a contractor in New York City and did much work for the Federal government, including the stone ice-breaker at Bridgeport, Connecticut, the jetties at the mouth of the Connecticut river, the foundation for the Bartholdi Statue of Liberty in New York harbour, the Race Rock Lighthouse off New London, Conn., and many life-saving stations. His vacations were spent sketching in the White Mountains, in Cuba, in Mexico, and afterwards in Venice, Constantinople and Holland. He published various volumes of travel, illustrated by himself; they include Old Lines in New Black and White (1885); Well-Worn Roads (1886); A White Umbrella in Mexico (1889); Gondola Days (1897), and The Venice of To-Day (1897). His novels and short stories are especially felicitous in their portrayal of the Old South. Among them are: Col. Carter of Cartersville (1891), which was successfully dramatized; A Day at La Guerre's and other Days (1892); A Gentleman Vagabond (1895); Tom Grogan (1896); Caleb West, Master-Diver (1898); The Other Fellow (1899); The Fortunes of Oliver Horn (1902), which has reminiscences of his artist friends; Col. Carter's Christmas (1904); At Close Range (1905); The Tides of Barnegat (1906); The Veiled Lady (1907); The Romance of an Old Fashioned Gentleman (1907); Peter (1908); and Forty Minutes Late and Other Stories (1909).