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Biography/History:
Anson Gordon Smythe, the son of blacksmith and farmer Daniel Smythe, was born in York County (formerly York District), South Carolina, on August 22, 1816. Anson Gordon Smythe had three brothers: Sam, James, and D.L. D.L. would later become a member of the 1882 Mississippi House of Representatives for Attala County, Mississippi. Anson Gordon Smythe married Rebecca Caroline Humphreys (Humphries), also a native of South Carolina, in 1842. The couple had two children, one of whom lived to adulthood: Andrew Jackson Smythe, born on February 29, 1856, in Baldwyn, Pontotoc (now Lee) County, Mississippi. Rebecca Caroline Humphreys Smythe died on November 7, 1876.
Anson Gordon Smythe’s medical education began in the office of Dr. Cross of Lexington, Holmes County, Mississippi, and continued with the attendance of lectures in New Orleans, Louisiana. While Smythe centered his medical practice in Baldwyn, Lee County, Mississippi, he also worked in nearby Lee County communities, Corona and Bethany, and in Prentiss and Pontotoc counties. Although he was a general practitioner, Smythe’s medical practice focused on obstetrics and the newly emerging field of women’s medicine. According to family tradition, Anson Gordon Smythe cared for the wounded from the June 1864 battle of Brice’s Cross Roads and from other battles near Baldwyn during the Civil War.
After the war, Dr. Smythe became a founding member of the Mississippi State Board of Health. In 1877, he authored a study discussing the diseases prevalent in his district. This study was the first to document the health concerns of Prentiss and Lee counties, and was published in the first annual report of the board in December of 1877.
Anson Gordon Smythe’s residence was twice severely damaged: first by fire, then by tornado, ruining many family possessions. Smythe rebuilt his home on the same spot after both events. Anson Gordon Smythe died on July 2, 1884, leaving his practice to his only child, Andrew Jackson Smythe. Anson Gordon Smythe was buried in Gaston Cemetery in Lee County, Mississippi.
Andrew Jackson Smythe obtained his education at the Kentucky Military Institute in Lyndon, Jefferson County, Kentucky. Prior to his formal medical education, Smythe apprenticed with his father for several years. Andrew Jackson Smythe attended lectures at the Medical College of Louisiana, now known as Tulane University, in New Orleans, Louisiana. Smythe graduated from Bellevue Hospital College of New York in 1881. In addition to his medical practice, Andrew Jackson Smythe was a landowner, possessing 160 acres, upon which he farmed cotton and raised several pedigreed pigs and chickens. Dr. Smythe was a member of the Knights of Honor and Woodmen of the World, two fraternal groups that were beneficent societies created to defray the costs of members’ funerals and to provide for their families.
In 1878, Smythe married Emma Richey, daughter of Robert Richey, in Baldwyn. The couple had six children: Mabel (or Mable) (b. December 26, 1878), Caroline, Nancy, Gordon, Andrew (b. March 17, 1891), and Emma.
Andrew Jackson Smythe died on September 28, 1904, at the age of forty-eight. He was buried with his parents, daughter, and grandson in Gaston Cemetery.
Scope and Content:
The Anson Gordon and Andrew Jackson Smythe Papers include personal correspondence, medical practice papers, business papers, Susan Humphreys’ correspondence, popular literature, advertisements, newspapers, fraternal papers, a map, photographs, and miscellaneous papers. Of interest in the medical series are the published books and pamphlets; birth records of enslaved and white children with comments on the births; and census death certificates that were mortality statistics of Lee and Union counties. The correspondence of possible Smythe relative, Susan Humphreys, contains personal accounts from Confederate soldiers of events surrounding the Chattanooga, Tennessee, retreat of 1863.
Series Identification:
This series includes the incoming and outgoing correspondence of Dr. Anson Gordon Smythe and his son, Dr. Andrew Jackson Smythe. Anson Gordon Smythe wrote extensively to family members, including his brother, D.L., while Andrew’s correspondence contains letters from friends and condolence letters from acquaintances upon the death of his father. Also included is a love note that Andrew Jackson Smythe was asked to send as an intermediary for a friend, and a family member’s self-diagnosis and request for medication.
Box 1, folders 1-13
2.1. Correspondence. 1877-1886; n.d. 20 folders.
This subseries consists primarily of correspondence concerning the Mississippi State Board of Health, of which Anson Gordon Smythe was a founding member. The subseries also contains Anson Gordon Smythe’s correspondence with the Mississippi State Medical Association and the American Public Health Association. Included as well are unbound leaflets attached to some correspondence, advertising various medical implements and pharmaceuticals.
Box 2, folders 1-17
Box 2, folder 18 (reference photocopy)
Box 16, folder 3
Box 23, folder 2 (restricted original)
2.2. Notes and Journals. 1853-1872; 1874-1876; 1880-1882; 1886; 1889; 1891; n.d. 1.04 cubic ft.
This subseries is comprised of notebooks written by Dr. Anson Gordon Smythe concerning the medical cases he treated. They contain his handwritten notes on patient information, diagnoses, and treatments. Of special interest are Smythe’s birth records. These record the births of both slave and white children during 1856, and list gender, date of birth, ownership, and comments about the birth.
Box 7
Box 9, folders 1-2, 4
Box 10, folders 6-8
Box 11, folders 1-3; 5-6
Box 13, folder 4
Box 16, folder 4
2.3. Essays. 1880; n.d. 3 folders.
This subseries contains medical essays written by Dr. Anson Gordon Smythe and a composition responding to the article, “Making Profits from Human Weakness.” The subseries also contains a handwritten speech by Anson Gordon Smythe entitled “The Utility of Medicine and Necessity for Physicians” that discusses the need and use of medicine and the medical profession.
Box 3, folders 1-2
Box 10, folder 1
2.4. Financial Records. 1855-1889; n.d. 1.88 cubic ft.
This subseries consists of receipts and promissory notes of payments for medical care costs of both patients and doctors, and spans the practices of both Anson Gordon and Andrew Jackson Smythe. The receipts date from the early 1860s to the 1880s, and record amounts of payment for services rendered. Also included are handwritten patient account ledgers, arranged by both date and patient name, documenting procedures performed and cost.
Box 3, folders 13-26 (reference photocopies)
Box 9, folder 3
Box 12
Box 23, folders 1, 4 (restricted originals)
2.5. Published Works. 1831-1887; n.d. 1.69 cubic ft.
This subseries contains thirty-six volumes of the personal medical libraries of Anson Gordon and Andrew Jackson Smythe. Included in the subseries are works on medical topics such as surgical anesthesia, midwifery principles, corpulence, and cholera. Of special interest are The Sanitary and Medical Reports for 1873-1874 by Officers of The United States Navy, a work that documents disease rates in naval ports of call and among the sailors on each ship of the fleet; and an illustrated Gluge’s Atlas of Pathological Histology.
Boxes 4-8
Box 9, folder 2
Box 11, folder 7
Box 13, folders 1-3
Box 14, folders 2-3
Box 15
2.6. Legislation. 1878; 1880; 1882; n.d. 1 folder.
This subseries includes copies of Mississippi Senate Bill 20, which regulated the practice of medicine in Mississippi, and copies of Senate Bill #28 that restructured the Mississippi State Board of Health. The subseries also contains House Bill #135 that created Mississippi General State Hospital, and the rules and regulations recommended by the state board for local adoption.
Box 2, folder 21
2.7. Census/Death Certificates. 1879-1880. 1 folder.
This subseries is comprised of “The Tenth Census of United States Physician’s Return of a Death,” signed by Anson Gordon Smythe. The death certificates represent people, primarily from Lee County, of all ages, races, genders, and occupations; including a person listed as “trying to live.”
Box 2, folder 19
2.8. Medical Kit. n.d.
The medical kit belonged to Anson Gordon Smythe. It contains catgut string, a saw, and several cutting implements.
Box 22 (restricted)
2.9. Certificate. 1881. 1 folder.
Included in this subseries is Andrew Jackson Smythe’s medical certification from Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1881.
Box 2, folder 20
2.10. Hippocratic Oath. n.d. 1 folder.
This subseries consists of a copy of the code of medical ethics known as the Hippocratic oath.
Box 17, folder 2 (reference photocopy)
Box 18 (restricted original)
3.1. Business Correspondence. 1878-1886, 1889-1890, n.d. 3 folders.
Anson Gordon Smythe’s correspondence contains letters from newspapers, lawyers, and dry goods stores. Andrew Jackson Smythe’s business correspondence includes letters to the W.P. Johnson Lake View Stock Farm, Hampton’s Station, Tennessee, in which Smythe negotiates the purchase and transport of pedigreed pigs and other farm animals.
Box 1, folders 14-16
3.2. Legal Papers. 1858; 1870-1872; 1878; 1880; 1883. 2 folders.
The legal papers contain Anson Gordon Smythe’s documentation of several transactions. Included in this subseries are papers giving Smythe power of attorney in the matter of obtaining a pension for Nehemiah Johnson, a War of 1812 veteran. This subseries also consists of correspondence and records pertaining to the application of a possible Smythe relative, Jane Humphreys, for a widow’s pension due to the service of her husband, John T. Humphreys, in the War of 1812.
Box 1, folders 17-18
3.3. Tax Records. 1871; 1879-1880. 1 folder.
This subseries consists of tax records of Anson Gordon and Andrew Jackson Smythe for Lee and Prentiss counties, and of James Watson for Union County, Mississippi. The records document the amounts owed in both county and state taxes.
Box 3, folder 5
3.4. Stud Book. 1881. 1 folder.
This subseries consists of a Pierce’s Memorandum and Account Book converted by Anson Gordon Smythe into a “stud book” documenting the stud fees charged for his horses.
Box 10, folder 2
3.5. Financial Receipts. 1881-1884; 1890; 1904; 1908; 1914; n.d. 2 folders.
This subseries is composed of general receipts for goods purchased by Anson Gordon Smythe, Andrew Jackson Smythe, and Thomas Dugger, son-in-law of Andrew Jackson Smythe. Also included is a handwritten receipt for Dugger’s purchase of a tract of land.
Box 3, folders 3–4
This series contains letters from various Confederate soldiers to Susan Humphreys, possibly a relative of the Smythes, of Corona and Baldwyn, Lee County, Mississippi. Many letters are from Andrew Stevenson of the William R. Nelson Guards, Company B, Thirty-Second Regiment, Mississippi Infantry. In the letters, Stevenson often mentions Susan Humphreys’ brother and cousin, who were also in the regiment. Other correspondents were members of the Thirty-Second Regiment of the Mississippi Infantry and of Company B of the Third Mississippi Calvary Reserves. The letters were written from camps in Georgia, Tennessee, and in Starkville, Oktibbeha County, Mississippi. They contain individual perspectives on the war and anecdotes of army life, such as L.L. Harwell’s tale of Confederate deserters overwhelming their guards in an escape attempt, and Andrew Stevenson’s narrative of his experiences during the November 28, 1863, retreat from Chattanooga, Tennessee.
Box 1, folder 19
The series consists of a copy of the New Testament written in both Greek and Latin; newsclippings of short stories; a “dream book” used to interpret dreams; The Farmer’s Pocket Companion; Ayer’s American Almanac 1880; The Western Casket; Appleton’s Literary Bulletin; and copies of both Peterson’s Magazine and Godey’s Lady’s Book and Magazine.
Box 10, folders 3-4
Box 11, folder 4
Box 14, folders 1; 4-5
Box 16, folders 1-2
This series contains advertisements of many late nineteenth-century goods and services. The series includes a colorful calendar advertisement for Perry Mason & Company, Publishers, of Boston, Massachusetts.
Box 3, folders 8-1 2
Box 17, folder 1 (reference photocopy)
Box 23, folder 3 (restricted original)
This series consists of original issues of several Mississippi newspapers from the nineteenth century, including The Sunday News (West Point, Monroe County) and The Tupelo Journal (Lee County).
Box 17, folders 3-4
Box 19
Box 20, folder 2
Box 21, folder 1
This series is comprised of a 1919 Woodmen of the World insurance certificate, and the treasury notebook of the Corona (Mississippi) Grange.
Box 3, folder 6
Box 10, folders 5, 9
The map is entitled, 1880 General Map of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Box 21, folder 2.
This series consists of two photographs, one of a colleague of Andrew Jackson Smythe, Dr. McCaa of Baton Rouge, Louisiana; and another of an unidentified man.
Box 3, folder 7
This series consists of various empty envelopes and scrap papers with notations of Anson Gordon Smythe and Andrew Jackson Smythe. It also contains a World War II poster entitled United States Office of Price Administration Official Table of Point Values for Processed Foods.
Box 1, folders 20-21
Box 20, folder 1