The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1897-05-07
HE WILL DEMoLIsH THE STATUE.
Capt. Elton A. smith to Blot Out the
Memory of Agnes GiIkersOn.
From the New York Woi


From the New York World.
One OF the stransest romances in histo-
ry IS written down in Smithville, N. j.,
the little town created and named in
honor of himself by Hezeklah B. Smith,
millionaire and one-time Congressman.
The career and the ending Of Hezekian
Smith, and the bitter fight made over his
millions are matters Of history. SO deep
~ interesting were they that Smithville,
the theater where the drama was begun
and where it was played out, was for
gotten.
When in 1887 Smith died and his estate
went into the courts to be struggled over
until now, the big mansion where jollity
had been the order OF the hour was closed /;
the shops, sadly hampered despite the ad-
mirable management of w. S. Kelly,
president of the II. B. Smith Machine
Company, by the uncertainties of owner
ship, employed fewer and fewer men
month by month. until finally handful
only of the original 800 remained, and the
whole town fell from thrift to sleepiness.
And now Smithville is to be rejuvenated.
She win bury the past of wrong and
weakness and ambition and start afresh.
Capt. Elton A. Smith, son of the found
er, is to move into the mansion, closed
these ten years, and the shops are to en-
ploy more men than ever before.
Capt. Smith has just come into his
rights, after winning one of the greatest
will contests ever fought out.
All that remains TO be done is the
signing of certain papers by the court
of last resort, and he will be master Of
his erring fathers millions.
One of the first Of Capt. Smiths acts
will be to destroy the statue of a woman,
the chief Of the dozen pieces of statuary
prr a r1p ant he 10 in Of ha OH
mansion.
From Italy came this work of art, and
it represents very faithfully Agnes Gil
kerson, who both made and marred the
life of Hezekiah Smith. 1t was set up
thirteen years ago, three years after
Agnes Gilkerson had been laid away In
ST. Andrews cemetery, at Mount Holly,
nearby, as the wife of the man whose
consort she had been for more than I,
quarter of a century, with never a legal
tie to bind her.
Smith had loved her from the moment
he met her, pretty, uneducated Lowell
factory girl of 10, until she died, and then
he worshipped her memory, perpetuating
1t in solid block Of marble.
The woman is represented as in her
youth, wearing a gown that finely sets
off her slender figure and standing erect
upon pedestal of brick, eight feet high
an iron canopy protecting the whole.
Capt. Smith cannot bring himself tc
look at this token of his fathers infatua.
ton. He was in Smithville Saturday anC
visited the mansion smouldering behinC
the twelve foot brick wall that incloses i
and sitting in the midst of forest trees
hedges and verdure once the pride of {
| landscape gardeners heart.
He did not go near the statue or ever
| look at it, and he said it must be dom
| away with so as never to trouble him o.
| his in after life. ..i ~
| Capt. Smith cannot forget that for thi
woman his father deserted a true wifi
| and four children at Woodstock, VT, hi
| old home ever afterwards disowning then
and that from his eighteenth year 1t ha,
| been, first his dream and then his lif
work, to see that wife, his mother, recog
nized by the courts and a stain removes
| from the whole family.
Now this has been done. but mean
while the mother, one son and daughte
had gone before, dying before the terri
| BILE wrong was righted.
Agnes Gilkerson was bright. Smith ha,
her carefully educated, and then she wa
clever. He took her to Smithville an,
| built the town. and then she was ambi
| tious. She played the domestic politician
and made influential friends as she en-
tertained in the old mansion. She saw
| her quasi-husband a congressman and sh
| lived joyfully at Washington, on the pin
nacle to which she had raised herself.
The end came suddenly. She was onl,
AZ years old. Now her heirs have de
clined to receive the marble that portray
her. and 1t will be missing some fine morn
| ing. There is fear that a museum Nigh
| get 1t, and 1t will be destroyed.