Compiled by Russell Bastedo
State Curator
1998

Fredrick Smyth (1865-1866). Born in Candia; Manchester railroad/bank president. Active in state politics from 1849.

Frederick Smyth (1819-1899) attended one school term at Phillips Academy (Andover, MA), then went to work in Manchester. He became president of the First National Bank and treasurer of Merrimack River Savings Bank. He also became president of the Concord Railroad. He was, in addition, interested in agriculture. Mr. Smyth served as treasurer of the NH Agricultural Society, and as vice president of the American Pomological Society (devoted to the science of raising fruit-bearing trees and shrubs).

At the age of thirty (1849) Smyth became City Clerk of Manchester. Three years later he was elected mayor for the first of four terms (1852/4, 1864). He was a (Republican) state legislator (1857/8), then a candidate for governor (1859) and, in 1860, president of the state Republican convention-where he surprised the party's first candidate for President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, by introducing Lincoln as the next president of the country. In 1861 Smyth represented the United States at the London International Exhibition-perhaps a payback by President Lincoln.

Smyth served again as Mayor of Manchester in 1864, and was elected governor in 1865. He was reelected in 1866.

Governor Smyth worked to straighten out New Hampshire's wartime finances, which were in substantial disarray because of Civil War expenditures. He borrowed $1.2 million to fund the state's war debt, and settled all state claims against the federal government on terms favorable to the state. He put New Hampshire's credit on a sound financial footing, equal to that of any other state, and "mustered out" soldiers remaining in wartime military units. Governor Smyth oversaw a revision of state statutes, and was a strong supporter of passage of the Fourteenth Amendment (passed 1868), which guarantees due process and equal protection to all United States citizens. He also undertook to restore fish to certain state rivers; and he began publication of state papers.

In retirement Smyth remained heavily involved in business and civic affairs until his death in 1899.

Location: State House, Second Floor
Portrait by U.D. Tenney, 1897; Presented by Governor Smyth