HOWARD C. SMITH

The History of West Virginia, Old and New
Published 1923, The American Historical Society, Inc.,
Chicago and New York, Volume III,
pg. 596
Kanawha

HOWARD C. SMITH. A casual acquaintance noting the
quiet, unassuming, homelike bearing and address of Howard
C. Smith of Charleston is surprised to learn his noted
record as a criminal catcher, a record that has left no out-
ward marks on him. For many years he has been engaged
in the pursuit and capture of criminals, so that he has
become recognized as an indispensable asset to the law
and order forces of the state.

Mr. Smith was born in 1868 in Putnam County, West
Virginia, on a farm located on the Teays Valley road, about
two miles from Winfield, county seat. His parents, Wil-
liam M. and Sarah T. (Gary) Smith, were both of pioneer
stock in the Kanawha Valley, good old fashioned people
whose names are remembered and cherished by all who
ever knew them. The mother is living on her farm with
her youngest daughter, Mrs. F. H. Hicks.  The father
died fourteen years ago. He was an exceptionally good
farmer and an expert in the raising and breeding of
cattle.

 From early boyhood Howard C.. Smith has had an ex-
perience and a fondness for livestock. He left home at
the age of sixteen, and working en ronte paid his way to
Indiana, where he was employed on the farm of an uncle,
later did farm work in Central Illinois, near Heyworth,
in the corn belt. When he returned home at the age of
nineteen he brought with him a modest capital accumula-
tion of four hundred dollars. Mr. Smith about 1890 moved
to Charleston, and with his brother Norris C. Smith as
partner engaged in the retail meat business. This busi-
ness was seriously affected by the panic of 1893, and
Howard C. Smith soon withdrew and accepted appointment
as constable of the Charleston district.  That was the
beginning of his service as a peace officer. At the regular
election of 1896, as candidate for constable on the repub-
lican ticket, he received more votes from the precinct
than were given to President McKinley.  It was his
Splendid record during the four years he was in office that
attracted attention and brought him offer of the position
of chief of special agents for the Chesapeake & Ohio Rail-
way. He took charge of this work, remaining with the
railway company four years, which greatly enhanced his
reputation as a criminal officer. In 1905 Mr. Smith was
appointed deputy United States marshal for the Southern
District of West Virginia, and he served in that capacity
eight years, under the Roosevelt and Taft administrations.
Then, in 1913, he was appointed United States commis-
sioner of Charleston, an office he held four years. Follow-
ing that Mr. Smith conducted for some years a private
detective bureau in Charleston. In December, 1921, the
business was reorganized under the name of the Howard C.
Smith Detective Bureau, the assistant manager and active
head of which is his son, Clyde H. Smith. The primary feature
of the bureau is the protection and safeguarding of busi-
ness houses in the commercial district of Charleston, under
contract with the Business Men's Division of the Charleston
Chamber of Commerce.

Only a few individual cases can be noted here as typifying
Mr. Smith's experience with apprehending and detecting
criminals. He has come in contact with some of the most
dangerous and notorious characters in the criminal history
of the state. Just before he entered the service of the
Chesapeake & Ohio, and while constable, he engaged in a
running battle with a gang of thieves who were robbing
railroad cars, and finally captured seventeen of them, all
being sent to the penitentiary. Either as a natural talent
or during his experience in the country as a boy, Mr. Smith
acquired the faculty of handling and training dogs, and
for a number of years he trained and kept a pack of blood-
hounds as valuable aids in criminal hunts.  The most
famous of these was the well remembered "Mose". One
case in which the hounds were used was the capture of
the notorious Joe Taylor of Putnam County, who for
twelve years had had an uninterrupted record of criminal
action, bootlegging, poisoning stock, burning houses and
committing murder. With the aid of his hounds, Mr. Smith
located Taylor in the latter's home, known as Taylor's
Port, where he had locked himself in a room, surrounded
by guns and ammunition, with a rifle pointed directly at
the door, the only entrance. A clever ruse adopted by Mr.
Smith led to his capture without bloodshed, and he was
sent to the penitentiary, where he died.

The hounds were also called into use when Mr. Smith
captured Ezra Peters, a negro who had burned the barn
of Charles Pemberton near Proctorsville, Ohio. While Mr.
Smith has engaged in pitched battles with desperate
criminals, many times he has effected captures without
the use of firearms or any display of force. He has been
known to go among a bunch of the most desperate men and
simply by a kindly or friendly word or two get them to
come along without resistance. More than once, the story
is told, he has taken a jewsharp out of his pocket, played
a tune, the result being that his quarry became entirely
tractable and willing to surrender. Mr. Smith's personality
is of the "homespun" type and not at all suggestive of
the criminal officer. This no doubt is a substantial reason
for his success. He has that rare quality of attracting
everyone with whom he comes in contact.

His chief pleasure is in his home and in his farm, the
latter a beautiful place of a hundred acres on the hill just
east of the city, in reality the summer home for his family.
He has a modern city residence on Elizabeth Street, in
the exclusive east end of the city, and owns other valuable
residence property in that section.

Mr. Smith married Miss Rosetta Florence Howell. Her
father, the late Augustus T. Howell, was a widely known
citizen of Putnam County, possessing a loveable character
and all the good qualities that made his death a source of
genuine mourning throughout the community. Mr. and Mrs.
Smith's two children are Miss Constance and Clyde H.
Smith. A grandson Harold Lynn Smith, six years of age,
is a son of Clyde H. Smith.

Submitted by:  vfcrook@earthlink.net (Valerie Crook)

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