Gerrit Smith
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/00/Gerrit_Smith_-_Brady-Handy.jpg)
First valedictorian of the new Hamilton College (1818), and married to the daughter of the college president, he had "a fine mind", with "a strong literary bent and a marked gift for public speaking". He was called "the sage of Peterboro." He was well liked, even by his political enemies. The many who appeared at his house in Peterboro, invited or not, were well received. (In 1842 the names of 132 visitors were recorded.)
Smith, one of the wealthiest men in New York, was committed to political reform, and above all to the elimination of slavery. So many fugitive slaves came to Peterboro to ask for his help (usually, in reaching Canada) that there is a book about them. Peterboro was, because of Smith, the capital of the abolition movement. The only assembly of escaped slaves (as opposed to free Blacks) ever to meet in the United States—the Fugitive Slave Convention of 1850—took place in neighboring Cazenovia because Peterboro was too small for the meeting.
Smith was also, and less successfully, a temperance activist, and a women's rights suffrage advocate. He was a significant financial contributor to the Liberty Party and the Republican Party throughout his life. Besides making substantial donations of both land and money to create Timbuctoo, an African-American community in North Elba, New York, he was involved in the temperance movement and the colonization movement, before abandoning colonization in favor of abolitionism, the immediate freeing of all the slaves. He was a member of the Secret Six who financially supported John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, in 1859. Brown's farm, in North Elba, was on land he bought from Smith. Provided by Wikipedia
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1by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1833
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2by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1863
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3by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1867
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4by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1867
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5by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1837
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6by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1865
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7by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1864
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8by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1869
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9by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1868
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10by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1868
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11by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1864
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12by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1846
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13by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1846
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14by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1870
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15by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1866
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16by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1852
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17by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1864
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18by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1862
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19by Smith, Gerrit
Published 1864
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20by Smith, GerritOther Authors: “...Smith, Gerrit (1797-1874)...”
Published 1855
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