Male

February 8, 1806

August 8, 1876

Reading, PA

Reading, PA

Emily Badger Smith (April 10, 1827)

Levi Bull Smith was the son of John and Elizabeth (Bull) Smith. He graduated from Princeton College in 1824 and then attended the Law School. He was admitted to the bar of Berks County, Pennsylvania, at Reading on January 10, 1827. Afterwards was engaged in the iron business with his brother-in-law, Judge William Darling, Darling and Smith were well known manufacturers of stoves. He also was an organizer of First National Bank of Reading, and its first president until his death in 1876.

In The History of Berks County Pennsylvania the author Morton Luther Montgomery authored a detailed biography of Smith. He wrote:

An Abolitionist in principal and an old-time Whig in his political faith, he became from the foundation of the Republican party one of its most zealous ...supporters. Whilst never seeking public office he was named as the Republican candidate for Congress in the Berks district in 1860, and his popularity was shown in the result at the election, when he ran considerably ahead of the State ticket. In the townships of the southern section of the county adjacent to his home his vote was especially strong. Having been placed the same year upon the Lincoln electoral ticket, he withdrew on the ground of the incompatibility of that position with his Congressional candidacy. At an earlier period he was upon several occasions a delegate to county and State conventions of the Whig and Republican parties. His judgment upon questions of finance was eminently conservative and sound, and the same shrewdness and forecast which he evinced in the management of his own large estate well qualified him for the successful discharge of the various business relations which he assumed toward others during his residence in Reading in the latter part of his life. Among these were his membership of the board of managers of the Reading Gas Company and of the Reading Fire Insurance Company, of the latter of which he was one of the organizers. Every associated effort for the literary culture and social betterment of the community received his co-operation and support.

In his denominational affiliations Mr. Smith was a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He was a member of the vestry of St. Thomas Church, Morgantown, and a delegate for more than thirty years from that parish to the diocesan convention. In 1858 he was a delegate to the general convention which met in New York City. Upon his removal to Reading he became a vestryman of Christ Church, remaining such until his death.

Personally Mr. Smith was of a genial and companionable disposition, possessing a marked and never-failing trait of humor, which made his presence at all times enlivening and agreeable. To be just to all men and faithful to his own was the ruling principle of his character and life. After a brief illness the end came to him at his home Aug. 8, 1876, when a few months advanced in the seventy-first year of his age. His estimable wife died Dec. 16, 1882. They had ten children.

Montgomery continued:

He was an outspoken and fearless Abolitionist, a warm friend of the colored people and sympathizer in their troubles.

Smith owned Joanna Furnace in Berks County and Smith was known to help runaway slaves travel through this area of Pennsylvania by sending them to the most remote areas of the woods surrounding the Furnace and staying with them until danger passed.

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1825

Graduated from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) in 1824.

Manufacturer

January 10, 1827 in Reading, PA

George C. Woodruff List.

Catalogue of the Litchfield Law School (Hartford, CT: Press of Case, Tiffany and Company, 1848), 21.