Elizur Yale Smith

Society weddings, Mrs. Gen. William M. Wright, Mrs. Elizur Yale Smith, and Mrs. John Ellis Roosevelt

Major Elizur Yale Smith (1885 – 1950) was an American paper manufacturer, military officer, socialite, author and historian from New York. He served in the American Legion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force during World War I, and became executive secretary of the Federal Hall in Manhattan, which he helped save with a consortium. He was prominent in Newport society during the late Gilded Age, along with his wife, Mrs. Annie Livingston Best, daughter of Col. Clermont L. Best. He was also one of the heirs of his father, millionaire Wellington Smith, and a friend of the Vanderbilts and Roosevelts in New York.

Early life

Elizur Yale Smith was born on May 7, 1885, in Lee, Massachusetts, to Anne Maria Bullard and Wellington Smith, members of the Yale family. His father was the son of Parthenia Caroline Yale, granddaughter of Capt. Josiah Yale of the American War of Independence, and was a cousin of Rev. Theodore Yale Gardner and Cleveland mayor George W. Gardner, who made his fortune as a commodity dealer with the young John D. Rockefeller. Elizur's father was also involved in politics, and was a personal friend of President William McKinley, and knew intimately Abraham Lincoln, whom he visited several times at his residence at the White House.

Before his father's death, Wellington had sold the 700 acres family equestrian estate in Lee, Massachusetts, to George Westinghouse, the competitor of Thomas Edison, and to William D. Sloane and Emily Thorn Vanderbilt, on which they would build Elm Court.

Biography

Smith attended a private school in Boston, and then enrolled at Williams College, Massachusetts, in 1907. He thereafter left Williams before graduation to attend Columbia University. Smith became a paper manufacturer and was made the Western manager of the company, while his brother, Augustus Smith, became its vice-president, and later, assumed the presidency. They were all members of Mrs. Astor's Four Hundred during the Gilded Age.

Smith's best man at the wedding was Dr. Smith Hollins McKim, husband of millionaire Margaret Emerson, who later remarried to Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt, and became the mother of Alfred Gwynne Vanderbilt Jr. His groomsmen included painter Ben Ali Haggin, grandson of millionaire James Ben Ali Haggin, and Frank J. Gould, husband of Princess Vlora of Albania, and son of robber baron Jay Gould. Gould's brother built Hempstead House on Long Island. On their wedding day, they were also showered with presents by Mrs. and Mr. Alfred G. Vanderbilt of The Breakers, nephew of George Washington Vanderbilt II of the Biltmore Estate.

Mrs. Best was a protegee of Mrs. Astor and Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish. Mrs. Best was also announced to society by Mrs. Astor's son, John Jacob Astor IV, who later perished on the Titanic, and was a member of The Four Hundred during the Gilded Age, along with her cousin Charlotte Tooker Warren. In 1907, the couple occupied, with Mrs. Clermont Livingston Best and Mrs. Eva Lincoln, the opera box at the Hudson Theatre, to see Brewster's Millions on Broadway.

Social life Mrs. Edward Lyman Short, born Anna Livingston Petit, cousin of Mrs. Yale Smith, and her maid of honor Glen Manor of Mrs. Henry A. C. Taylor, nicknamed "Empress Josephine", in Newport, Rhode Island

The Yale-Smith couple attended, with Mrs. J. Ellis Roosevelt, the wedding of Florence Bourne, daughter Frederick Gilbert Bourne, the proprietor of the Singer Building. They then attended the wedding reception at Newport of Mrs. Best's cousin, Charlotte L. Warren, daughter of Whitney Warren. Guests included Mrs. Taylor of Glen House Manor, nicknamed Empress Josephine, Ogden Mills of Livingston Manor, Countess Gladys Vanderbilt of The Breakers, cousin of Duchess Consuelo Vanderbilt of Blenheim Palace, the Goelets of Ochre Court, and a few others.

Smith's wife was involved in various activities at Newport, Rhode Island, with the daughters of C. P. H. Gilbert, architect for the Warburgs of Warburg House, and for Otto Hermann Kahn of Oheka Castle. They were invited at the debutante reception of Mrs. John Ellis Roosevelt at her new home at 818 Madison Avenue, to introduce their daughter Gladys Roosevelt to society. Her husband was a cousin of President Theodore Roosevelt, being the son of Robert Roosevelt, Teddy's uncle. Smith would inherit equally with his brothers a few years later when his father died in 1910. Their wedding was attended by Baron Rudolph von Buddenbrock, grandson of Prussian General Friedrich von Buddenbrock of the Napoleonic Wars.

She remarried 10 years later to W. Sackett Duell, son of Associate Justice Charles H. Duel, brother of Senator Holland S. Duell, and grandson of Congressman R. Holland Duell.

Later life

Around 1910, Smith was placed on a hard bench in the Cook County Jail in Chicago, for having made worthless checks to The Blackstone Hotel. He had been previously accused of the same scheme in London a few years before at the Carlton Hotel. His checks were without funds at the time based on technicalities with the trust fund, as while being an heir of his father's fortune with his brothers, he had not yet inherited the full sum. He was in charge of recruiting in Vancouver, and later for British Columbia.

In 1917, Elizur's brother, Augustus Smith, at the time president of the Smith Paper Co., would sell the family enterprise to the British American Tobacco Co. of James Buchanan Duke, benefactor and namesake of Duke University. In 1919, he became captain of the 50th Battalion of the Canadian Corps in France.

In 1928, Smith married secondly to actress Ida Emeline Gore, a sister of Col. Edwin Bulkley Gore, who was general manager of the Delaware and Hudson Railway. He later remarried to Miss Violet Alley, and their daughter Doreen would be baptized at St George's Chapel of Windsor Castle, by Rev. Albert Baillie, the Dean of Windsor.

Death

Smith eventually became Major in the army, and executive secretary of the Bill of Rights Commemorative Society, as well as custodian of the Federal Hall National Memorial on Wall Street. He was also historian of the Federal Hall, and helped saved the monument and convert it into a museum. One project involved Barney Balaban, president of Paramount Pictures, regarding documents relating to the United States Bill of Rights. He covered the history of the wood pulp industry with members of Congress, started by his father Wellington Smith, and granduncle Senator Elizur Smith, who founded the Smith Paper Company.

Elizur Yale Smith was stricken at the Commodore Hotel and died on January 12, 1950, in Manhattan, New York.