Graduated 1847. His father was the Rev. George Archibald Smith, the first graduate of the Episcopal Theological Seminary of Virginia. His mother was Ophelia Williams. Rev. Mr. Smith’s health failing, he was compelled to give up the active ministry, and he founded a famous Boys’ School at his home in Fairfax County, known as Clarens Institute. From this school went many boys who subsequently became prominent men. Later, he became the editor of the Southern Churchman, then and now, the organ of the Episcopal Church, in the Diocese of Virginia.
Isaac Smith’s paternal grandparents, Hugh Smith and Elizabeth Watson, came to Virginia from Knutsford, England, and Armagh, Ireland, respectively, His maternal grandparents were Isaac Hite Williams, of Fredericksburg, and Lucy Coleman Slaughter, of Culpeper County, Virginia, the latter a daughter of Captain Philip Slaughter, an officer of the Revolution. These grandparents came to Alexandria, Virginia, during the closing years of the 18th century.
After graduating at the Institute, the subject of this sketch was appointed second lieutenant in company K, of the U. S. Voltigeurs, April 9, 1847, and served, in the detachment under Major Lally, in the war with Mexico, during one campaign, and was then detailed for recruiting service at Baltimore. August 31, 1848, he was honorably mustered out of the military service.
“In 1849-’50, he was assistant engineer and astronomer on the survey of the parallel between the Creek and Cherokee Indians, under Lieutenants Sitgreaves and Woodruff, U. S. A. In 1851, he was assistant astronomer, and first assistant, on the survey of the parallel between Iowa and Minnesota. In 1852, he was resident engineer on the survey and construction of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad, Virginia. In 1853-’54, he was assistant engineer on the Pacific Railroad surveys and explorations, under Lieutenants Livingston and Parker, of the U. S. Corps of Engineers. He then went to Washington Territory, and became engineer and special agent for the construction of lighthouses on the Straits of Tuca and Shoalwater Bay, under Major Hartman Bache, Corps Engineers, U. S. A. This work was accomplished under considerable difficulty and peril.
In the Indian uprising of 1855-56, he served as aide-de-camp on the staff of Captain I. I. Stevens, then Governor of the Territory, and saw much active service. After this, he was engaged for a year or more under his life-long friend and fellow-veteran of the Mexican War, Major James Tilton, as deputy surveyor, and surveyed several of the meridian and standard parallel lines then being established through the trackless and all but impassable forests of Western Washington. He was then appointed Register of the United States Land Office for the Olympia District, which included the vast Territory of Washington.
“In 1862, he joined in the rush to the newly-discovered places in Cariboo, B. C., where he remained only a short time. On his return from the mines, he went to his native state, and tendered his services to the Confederate Government. Receiving the appointment of captain of engineers (later being brevetted colonel), he was continuously employed until the close of the War upon the defenses before Petersburg and Richmond. After the War, he returned home, the possessor solely (as described in his own words) ‘of an old gray uniform¾much tattered and worn, a good horse, and a large amount of experience.’ He soon received the appointment of division engineer on the Imperial Mexican Railroad from Vera Cruz to Mexico (under Andrew Talcott, Chief Engineer), and was placed in charge of the line from Paso del Macho to Ougaba. He remained in Mexico during the years 1867 and 1868, engaged upon this work, as chief engineer and inspector of drainage and hydraulic work near Tepic. In 1869 he was engineer of construction on The Western Pacific Railroad (later merged in the Central Pacific).
“In 1870, he was placed in charge of surveys along the Columbia and Cowlitz Rivers, in Washington Territory, for the Northern Pacific Railroad. After a short time, he was given the construction of the locks and a canal around the falls of the Willamette River, near Portland, Oregon,¾a work of great magnitude and importance. The contractors, after a year, failing to show satisfactory results, the work was carried forward by Colonel Smith alone, with great rapidity. A large State subsidy depended on the work being completed in time. The Colonel accomplished the desired end, and not only secured for the company the desired subsidy, but turned over a work which, for excellence of design and thoroughness of execution, marked him as an engineer of notable skill and ability.
“In 1873, the Northern Pacific Railroad called him again into its service, and placed him in charge of the survey of the new terminal at Tacoma. In February, 1875, he visited Peru, but finding the country again in the throes of civil war, and all railway construction stopped, he returned at once to California, and made surveys in Arizona for the Southern Pacific Railroad. A year later, in association with Colonel George H. Mendall, of the Corps of Engineers, U. S. A., he made an exhaustive study of, and report upon, the
water supply for the City of San Francisco. As Colonel Mendall’s chief assistant, he had charge of the extensive surveys, including all available sources of supply.
“From April 1876 to April 1878, Colonel Smith was one of the Board of Railroad Commissioners for the State of California, the other Commissioners being John T. Doyle, Esq., and General George Stoneman. In May, 1878, he was appointed chief engineer of the Sacramento River Drainage District Commission. The project under consideration for a drainage canal was shown to be impracticable, and was abandoned. From this time till the spring of 1880, Colonel Smith was chief engineer for the Board of State Harbor Commissioners of California, in which capacity he designed the sea-wall for the water front of San Francisco, and constructed upwards of a mile of it. In April, 1880, he was placed by the Northern Pacific Railroad in full charge of the Cascade Mountain surveys. The route finally adopted was surveyed and mapped under his direction.
“In September, 1881, he was appointed chief engineer of the Oregon Pacific Railroad Company, then constructing a line eastward from Yaquima Bay, Oregon. He remained with this company two years, completing the line as far as Corvallis (about 60 miles), and then resigned, and returned to Tacoma, Washington, where he made a report of the water supply of that City. During the years 1883 to 1885, he was chief engineer for the Tacoma Light and Water Company, designing and constructing the gas and water plants for that City, at an expense of nearly half a million dollars, and superintending the works for some months after completion.
“Early in 1886, he was called to the work of determining the future water supply of the City of Portland, Oregon. The cost of the proposed scheme being too great for the financial ability of the City at that time, he was placed in charge of the existing system, as engineer and superintendent, and continued to hold this position until his death. His plans for a new system were carried out before Colonel Smith’s death, at an outlay of nearly three million dollars. This, his magnum opus, was the last of a long series of beneficent works he had constructed for the comfort, health,
and safety of mankind; and he was happily permitted to live to see it completed, and in successful operation, two years before his death.
“For several years his leisure moments were spent in the preparation of a treatise on the ‘Theory of Deflection and of Latitudes and Departures, with Special Application of Curvilinear Surveys and Alignments of Railway Tracks,’ which he published; and, only a few months before his death, he prepared a paper on the ‘Flow of Water in Wrought and Cast Iron Pipes from 28 to 42 Inches, Diameter,’ for publication in the Transactions of this Society. He became a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers on October 1, 1873.
“Colonel Smith’s reputation as an engineer of ability and integrity became established early, and his services were continually in demand.”
The above sketch of this peerless Old Cadet of the V. M. I. is abridged from a memoir of Colonel Smith, by Messrs. D. D. Clarke, M. Am. Soc. C. E., Edward Tilton, C. E., and Robert P. Maynard, C. E., which appears in the Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers. It is a subject of keen regret that we can not reproduce the memoir in its entirety. One who was intimately associated with Colonel Smith at various times, thus speaks of him (we can quote only a portion of his beautiful tribute): “ . . . I can truly say that there was nothing in my whole acquaintance with him but that tended to increase my admiration and respect for the man. He was one of the few engineers whom I have been associated with who combined a thorough theoretical knowledge of mathematical principles with a practical grasp of the best methods for the solution of the various problems that were being constantly presented to him, in the conduct of his work.
. . . . . . . .
“There is one trait which characterized the Colonel to a marked degree, and that is his absolute integrity and incorruptibility;¾another trait of his character was his thorough unselfishness. He was not only a devoted son and brother; but, in his intercourse with the men in his employ, he was always thinking of their comfort and welfare, rather than his own. Certainly, in all my experience, I do not know of another man who could equal the Colonel in his rare combination of strength and purity and gentleness of character.
. . . I shall always feel that it has been one of the privileges of my life to have known as intimately as I did a man of the character of Colonel Smith.”
Colonel Smith never married. His parents were his first care, and were always lovingly considered, as were his sisters later, and as long as he lived. Two distinguished younger brothers of Colonel Smith are also graduates of the V. M. I.¾Judge George H. Smith (Colonel of the 62d Virginia Infantry, C. S. A.) and the Hon. Francis L. Smith¾both happily, still living.
(Source: The Military History of the Virginia Military Institute from 1839-1861, by: Jennings C. Wise, Publ: 1915. Transcribed by: Helen Coughlin)
