Samuel Harrison Smith (printer)

Samuel Harrison Smith (27 January 1772 1 November 1845) [1] was an American journalist and newspaper publisher. He founded the National Intelligencer at Washington in 1800. Joseph Gales became his assistant in 1807 and sole proprietor in 1810. He was a friend, confidant and counselor to president Thomas Jefferson. In 1813 Smith was appointed the Commissioner of the Revenue for the United States Treasury Department by President Madison, and on September 30, 1814, Secretary of the Treasury, ad interim. During the period 1809-19 he was president of the Bank of Washington and then president of the Washington branch of the Bank of the United States until the position was abolished in 1835. He was married to the author Margaret Bayard Smith, first cousin to James A. Bayard who was so influential in the 1800 presidential election.[2]

References

  1. Hughes, Thomas Patrick. American ancestry: giving the name and descent, in the male line, of Americans whose ancestors settled in the United States previous to the Declaration of Independence, A.D. 1776 9.
  2. Smith, Margaret Bayard (1906). The First Forty Years of Washington Society.