Dates: 1891-1908

Biography:

Lemuel Augustus Smith, I

Lemuel Augustus Smith, I, was born on November 19, 1878, the son of Lemuel Augustus and Carrie West Smith. He attended schools in Holly Springs and Durant, Mississippi, and graduated from the University of Mississippi in 1899. Smith also studied law for a year at the university, passed the bar examination in 1900, and was admitted to the bar. He married Emma Louise Roberson on February 7, 1900. They had three children: Louise Caffey Smith Marbury, Lemuel Augustus Smith II, and Martha R. Smith Parks. Smith was a charter member of the local Elks lodge formed in 1907; he was also a Mason and a member of the Knights of Pythias. Smith practiced law in Holly Springs until 1936, when he was appointed a judge for the Third Chancery Court District of Mississippi. He was then elected to two successive terms in that office. In 1945, Smith was elected supreme court justice for the Northern District of Mississippi, an office he held until his death from a heart attack on October 10, 1950, in Jackson, Mississippi.

The German Insurance Company of Freeport, Illinois, was taken over in 1906 by the Royal Insurance Company of Liverpool, [England], whose Southern Department was based in Atlanta, Georgia. The local agent managing the conversion of the policies in Holly Springs was Lemuel Augustus Smith I. The company for which Smith worked before the takeover is unclear from the records in this collection. It is possible that he was an independent agent selling policies for several insurance companies.

 

Scope and Content Note:

The two ledgers contain copies of policies issued to individual homeowners and businesses in Holly Springs, Mississippi, and its environs. The earlier of the two is unidentified; it has mostly handwritten copies of policies issued from January 3, 1891, through August 26, 1907. Some of these policies are printed forms issued by the Phenix [sic] Insurance Company of Brooklyn, [New York]. The later volume has printed, typewritten, or handwritten copies of policies issued by the German Insurance Company and the Royal Insurance Company from March 6, 1906, through April 4, 1908. The ledgers may be useful to architectural and business historians because they contain descriptions of buildings and their values.

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: [Volume 1]. Ledger. 1891-1907.

Series 2: [Volume 2]. Ledger. 1906-1908.