Woman of the Century/Emily L. Goodrich Smith

SMITH, Mrs. Emily L. Goodrich, newspaper correspondent, born in the old Hancock house, Boston, Mass., 1st June, 1830. She is the oldest daughter of the late Hon. S. G. Goodrich, widely known as "Peter Parley." Her mother was Miss Mary Boott, of an English family of position. EMILY L. GOODRICH SMITH. Being obliged to go abroad, they placed their little daughter in the famous Inglis-McCleod school. Her education, begun thus auspiciously, was for years pursued in France and Italy, where every opportunity for study was given her, and she became an accomplished linguist. In 1846, in Paris, France, she was presented at the court of Louis Philippe and saw the throne of the "citizen king" broken and burned in the uprising of 1848. At that time she took her first lesson in caring for the wounded. The court of the hotel was filled with men shot down by the soldiery. A mob of ninety-thousand controlled the city three days. For twenty hours Lamartine held them by his eloquence, and Miss Goodrich stood on a balcony near when the rabble hurled down a statue and thrust him into its niche. While her father was Consul in Paris, she assisted her mother in entertaining numbers of their countrymen, as well as such dignitaries of other nations as were visiting the city. In the days so alarming for all Paris the American Consulate and Mr. Goodrich's house were filled with terror-stricken foreigners, who found their only place of safety under the protection of the American flag. Miss Goodrich was presented at the Court of St. James at the time of the first great exposition. In 1856 she returned to the United States and became the wife of Nathaniel Smith, of Connecticut, a grandson of the famous Nathaniel Smith who was Senator in the days when Congress sat in Philadelphia, and chief justice of Connecticut. In 1861 Mrs. Smith followed her husband to the Civil War, where she remained with him for two years. He was injured in an explosion, and, although his death did not occur till some years after the war had ended, he was a martyr to the cause of liberty. "Mrs. Colonel," as the soldiers called her, is mentioned in the State reports as being very efficient in tent and hospital. She has written many stories and some verse for various magazines. During the stormy years in Paris and the stirring times thereafter she was correspondent of a great New York daily. Her letters during the war and accounts of the Centennial were widely read and copied. In 1883, to help others, she took up the work of the Chautauqua Literary and Scientific Circle, and she is one of ten in Connecticut who, in 1891, were enrolled in the highest order of Chautauqua degrees. When Mount Vernon was to be purchased by the women of America, she was appointed first vice-regent of Connecticut, and her daughter was one of her most valued assistants. She has done much efficient work in the State as agent for the Humane Society. For many years she lived in Woodbury, but of late has lived in Waterbury, Conn. For the last twenty years she has been more or less connected with the newspapers, and was for two years secretary of the large correspondence association of the "American."