The Republican executive committee the entire state ticket and many other prominent men, in the state and out, endorsed him for minister to Liberia in 1889.
In 1890, the State University of Ky. conferred upon him the degree of D. D.
In the same year he was appointed deputy collector of internal revenue, with his office in the custom house, Charleston.
It was solely thought the efforts of Dr. Payne and Prof. Byrd Prillerman that, in 1891, the legislature of W. Va. established the Mechanical and Agricultural College in Kanawha County for the benefit of the negro youth of the state.
It was in this year that he became one of the proprietors of the Pioneer, a weekly journal printed in Huntington with Rev. I. V. Bryant editor in chief.
As a preacher and an orator he is dignified and eloquent.
As a writer, he is polemic, his diction pure, and his style graceful.
He is unquestionably, the most representative negro in the state of W. Va., both in religion and politics.
Rev. Jeremiah R. B. Smith, Time Honored Afro-American Contributor.
The subject of our sketch, the Rev. Jeremiah R. B. Smith, was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., on the 19th day of April, 1846. His father, whose name was Francis Smith, was a native of Virginia, and, though born a slave, became a portrait painter and after attaining his freedom practiced his art with credit in New York City. His mother was a native of New Jersey, likewise born a slave: her maiden name was Sarah Jane Van Dorn.
