Matt G. Smith, W. Feliciana Parish, Louisiana
Submitted by Mike Miller
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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.