U.S. Data Repository
 -- USGenNet Inc. --

Please read the U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on the following page:
<http://www.us-data.org/fineprint.html>

History and Progress of the County of Marion, West Virginia
by George A. Dunnington, Publisher 1880

Pen Sketches of Prominent Citizens
FONTAIN SMITH, ESQ.

The subject of this sketch is a native Virginian. He
was born and reared in the interior of the state, and
is now upwards of fifty years of age. He commenced the
study of law in 1848, and was admitted to the bar in
1850. He came to Marion county in the Spring of 1857,
locating at Mannington, where he engaged for a short
time in school teaching, while he practiced in the
courts of this and adjoining counties. The Marion
county bar at that time was composed of a number of
gentlemen of eminent ability-such men as ex-Gov. F. H.
Pierpoint, who has since attained a national
reputation, James Neeson, Esq., now one of the most
distinguished members of the Richmond bar, Hon. A. F.
Haymond, at present a member of the Supreme Court of
Appeals of W est Virginia, Hon. E. B. Hall, who
afterwards presided over the Eleventh Judicial Circuit
of West Virginia, (since made the Third,) now a
resident of California, Hon. B. F. Martin, present
Representative in Congress, Albert S. Hayden, Ellery R.
Hall, and others. In 1860, Mr. Smith, being
conservative in his political opinions, espoused the
cause of Stephen A. Douglas, for President, and was
appointed by the Douglas convention, elector for the
Senatorial district, composed of Marion, Wetzel and
Tyler counties. In the following year he was nominated
a candidate for a seat in the memorable convention,
which convened in Richmond in February, 1861, and
passed the Ordinance of Secession. He was defeated,
however, in the contest by Hons. A. F. Haymond and E.
B. Hall. He was a pronounced Union man, and ardently
opposed to secession. In the Spring of 1861, he was
elected to the Legislature of Virginia, but refused to
take his seat in that body, the convention having
passed the ordinance of secession. However, when the
State Government was reorganized at Wheeling, he co-
operated with the authors of that movement. In the
organization of the Legislature under the restored
government, he was made Chairman of the House Committee
on Courts of Justice. In the year 1868, Mr. Smith, at
the Grafton democratic convention, was tendered the
nomination for Congress from his district, but declined
it. He was, in 1872, with Messrs. A. F. Raymond and U.
N. Arnott, elected a delegate to the constitutional
convention of West Virginia, and for a short time in
this year was engaged with his son in the editorial
management of the Liberalist. Since 1872, Mr. Smith has
been living a comparatively quiet life in Fairmont, and
has taken no very active part in politics. He is one of
the leading members of the Marion county bar, and
controls a large practice in this and surrounding
counties. He is a gentleman of considerable literary
and legal attainment; is fluent and forcible in an
argument, and a popular and eloquent speaker. He is one
of the most prominent men of his county, and is the
father of Clarence L. Smith, the present clerk of the
circuit, court, who is a young lawyer of acknowledged
ability.