His parents were Sully Smyth of Lynchburg, Campbell County,
Va., and Ann Eliza, formerly Goode of Chesterfield County,
Va. He received his first instruction from a lady of his own
race, at a time when the laws of Virginia made it a penal
offense to teach Negroes any other thing than manual labor.
At the age of seven years he was sent to Philadelphia to be
educated. He attended the public schools of that city four
years and two private schools under the control and
direction of friends or Quakers. He graduated from the
Institute for Colored Youth, May 4, 1862. He displayed a
decided taste and aptitude for the fine arts early in life,
and at the age of sixteen years he became a student of art,
and was admitted a member of the Life School of the Academy
of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, a year before graduation. In
1870 he graduated from the Law School of Howard University.
The same year he married the daughter of Rev. John Shippen,
of Washington, D. C., Miss Fannie Ellen, a lady whom he had
the pleasure of instructing in the first elocution class of
Howard University.

For eighteen years he was in the service of the United
States, beginning as a first-class clerk and ending as
United States Minister and Consul-General. For seven years
he taught in the public schools of Pennsylvania, practiced
law in the District of Columbia, North and South Carolina.
On retiring from the diplomatic service in Liberia, two
distinctions were conferred upon Mr. Smyth, by Liberia
College, the honorary degree of LL. D., and by the President
of Liberia, the Honorable Hilery Richard Wright Johnson, the
order of Knight Commander of the Humane Order of African
Redemption. There were only two Americans so honored by the
Black Republic. At present Mr. Smyth is at the head of the
Negro Reformatory Association of Virginia, a corporation
resident in Virginia, with authority to establish reform
schools for delinquent Negro minors of both sexes in
Virginia.

The first school of the association is the Virginia Manual
Labor School, Hanover, Va., with 1,800 acres of land, 800 of
which is under cultivation. The good people of Mr. Smyth's
native city, Richmond, and friends in Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York have made possible
the purchase