| Buckingham Smith |
| Information extracted from Cyclopadia of American Literature by Everat A Duyckinck, Philadelphia: T. E. Zell, 1875 and Appleton's Cyclopedia of American Biography edited by James Grant Wilson John Fiske and Stanley L Klos, 1887-1889. (Thomas) Buckingham Smith was born on Cumberland Island, Georgia, in October 31, 1810, but was a resident of Florida (1820) when it passed into the hands of the United States. He was educated at the Cambridge law school (Harvard) (1836) and began the practice of his profession in Maine. 1839-40 he was secretary to Florida Governor Raymond Reid. He was a member of the St. Augustine City Council. He was a member of the Florida Assembly (1841) The Secretary of the Treasury, in 1848, appointed Buckingham Smith to make a general inspection of the Everglade area (with Lieut Francis Marion) and to report his findings. "Aquatic flowers of every hue and variety are to beseen on every side of this place of profound and wild solitude ... pervaded by silence." Smith reported to the United States Senate in June 1848 that he believed the Everglades could be reclaimed by a sensible system of canaling and by deepening the various streams that flowed both east and west to the coasts. He believed that drainage would insure the growth of a new agricultural empire in south Florida. He became the Secretary of Legation to Spain (1855-1858) where he sought in libraries, public and private archives, in maps, globes, monuments, and family history, whatever bore any relation to the State to which he so entirely belonged. He was also the Charge d'Affaires in Mexico (1850-1852) where he acquired an immense mass of documents, books, portraits, and monuments of every kind. He settled in Florida in 1859, became a judge and served several terms in the state senate. In 1864 he was a candidate to the Democratic convention. In 1868 he was a tax collector for Florida. A part of his library was bought by the New York Historical Society after his death. He is buried in St. Augustine in the Protestant Cemetery next to his mother Hannah Smith and his sister Hannah Anita Amelia Porter. His will was administered by Dr. Bronson and became in part --- The Buckingham-Smith Association which continues to serve low-income individuals today in St. Augustine Obit He published: The Narrative of Alvar Nufiez Cabeza de Vaca (1851) Letter of Hernando de Soto and Menoir de Hernandado de Esccalante Fontaneda (1854) Collection de Verios Documentos para la Historia de la Florida y tierras adjacentes (1857) Rudo Ensayo, Tentativa de una Precencionate Descripcion Geografica de la Procincia de Sonora, sus Termines y Comfinca...San Austia de la Florida, (1863) An Inquiry into the Authenticity of Docuemnts concerning a Discovery in North America, claimed to have been made by Verrazzano (1864) Grammar of the Pima or Nevome, a Language of Sonora from a Manuscript of the XVII Century (1862) gudo Ensayo, tentativo de una Prevencional Description Geographica de la Provincia de Sonora (1863) Grammatical Sketch Of The Heve Language (1861) Doctrina Christiana y Confesionario en Lenqua Nezome o sea la Pima (1862) He prepared in New York the Narratives of the Career of Hernando De Soto in Florida (1866) He died in New York City January 5, 1871 |
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| Buckingham Smith Florida Memory Project |