Francis Hopkinson Smith

(1838-1915)

Francis Hopkinson Smith, a noted engineer, artist, and writer, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on October 23, 1838, the great-grandson of Francis Hopkinson, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Starting life as a shipping clerk in a hardware store, Smith soon became an assistant superintendent of a New York iron foundry during the Civil War. Leaving the foundry, he set himself up as an engineer with a partner, James Symington. On April 26, 1866, Smith married Josephine Van Deventer.

Smith's engineering firm was in business for thirty years, contracting many projects with the Federal Government, including the building of the Race Rock Lighthouse, the Block Island Break-water, the sea wall on Staten Island, the foundations for the Statue of Liberty, and the architectural plans for the Mosquito Inlet Lighthouse. In his free time, Smith painted and wrote many notable books, a best seller of which was his novel Caleb West: Master Diver (1898), recounting his construction of the Race Rock Lighthouse. He retired to a life of travel, painting and writing in Spain, Italy, and Constantinople, dying in New York on April 7, 1915.