Smith, Matt G.

Submitted by Mike Miller

Matt G. Smith has been engaged in the real-estate and insurance business in the City of Baton Rouge, where his operations have become of broad scope and representative order and where he maintains his offices at 307 New Reymond Building, 00 Third Street.

Mr. Smith was born on a plantation in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana, March 12, 1881, a son of Courtland B. Smith, who was born in that parish in the year 1852 and who was a son of John W. Smith, who there passed his entire life and who was one of the extensive planters of that section of we state. The Smith family, of which the subject of this review is a scion, was founded in Virginia in the colonial period of our national history, and the lineage traces back to sterling English origin. Courtland B. Smith, like his father, became a representative of extensive plantation industry in West Feliciana Parish, and there he passed his entire life, which came to an end when he was a young man of thirty-three years, in 1885. He was a loyal supporter of the cause of the democratic party, and he was serving as sheriff of his native parish at the time of his death. Mr. Smith was affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, the Knights of Pythias and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and his religious faith was that of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of which his wife likewise was an earnest member. He married Miss Mary Elizabeth Smith, the two families having no kinship, though of the same name, and she long survived him. She was born in Pointe Coupee Parish, January 10, 1851, and passed the closing years of her life in the home of her daughter, Anna Jane (Mrs. Henry N. Pharr), near New Iberia, this state, where her death occurred November 13, 1911. Of the children the eldest is Courtland B., Jr., who conducts an art studio in the City of Galveston, Texas; Anna Jane is the wife of Henry N. Pharr, and they reside at Olivier, Iberia Parish, Mr. Pharr being one of the progressive sugar-planters of that parish ; Ventress J. is junior member of the representative law firm of Burke & Smith of New Iberia, that parish ; Mary Charlotte is the wife of John A. Pharr, a sugar-planter at Berwick, St. Mary Parish; Kemp C. is engaged in the real-estate business, at Baton Rouge; Matt G., immediate subject of this sketch, was the next in order of birth; and Joe Jones, who was born in 1884, died in the year 1919, at New Iberia, where he was a bookkeeper by vocation.

Matt G. Smith proved a most receptive student, as is shown in the fact that he was only sixteen years old when he withdrew from the junior class in Centenary College at Jackson, Louisiana, to initiate his association with practical business affairs. He became at that time a clerk in the establishment of the Fuqua Hardware Company of Baton Rouge, and with this concern he continued his connection until 1909, when he here established himself independently in the real-estate and insurance business. His success in this field of business enterprise has fully justified his choice of vocation, and he has built up one of the substantial agencies of this order in East Baton Rouge Parish, with the best of facilities for the handling or both city and rural realty and for the underwriting of insurance through the medium of leading insurance corporations.

As a democrat he was elected a member of the police Jury, representing the Second Ward of Baton Rouge, and he is the incumbent of this position at the time of this writing, in the spring of 1924. He is a member and trustee of the First Methodist Episcopal Church South, in his home city, is actively identified with the local Chamber of Commerce, is a member of the Baton Rouge Golf and Country Club, is past exalted ruler of Baton Rouge Lodge No. 490. Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is affiliated also with Capital Lodge No. 29, Knights Of Pythias.

A service of loyalty and patriotism was that rendered by Mr. Smith in the period of American participation in the World war. On the 6th of May, just one month a after the nation formally became involved in the great world conflict, he volunteered for service in the United States Army, and at Camp Logan H. Roots, near little Rock, Arkansas, he Won his commission as second lieutenant of artillery. He received this commission August 15, and was then assigned to the quartermaster department at Camp Pike, near Little Rock, where January, 1918, he was promoted to the rank of Sr. Lieutenant and where in the following August received commission as Captain. He continued in service for some time after the armistice brought War to a close, and remained at Camp Pike until he received his honorable discharge, May 15, 1919. Captain Smith showed fine military ability, but he has not yet proved sufficiently intrepid to leave the ranks of eligible bachelors in his home city.

A History of Louisiana, (vol. 2), pp. 116-117, by Henry E. Chambers. Published by The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York, 1925.