{"id":1662,"date":"2010-05-10T11:25:11","date_gmt":"2010-05-10T16:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/?p=1662"},"modified":"2010-05-10T11:25:31","modified_gmt":"2010-05-10T16:25:31","slug":"davenporters-of-note-samuel-francis-smith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/2010\/05\/10\/davenporters-of-note-samuel-francis-smith\/","title":{"rendered":"Davenporters of Note: Samuel Francis Smith"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0<\/strong>S<\/strong>on of the highly respected man who composed the
\n\u00a0 lyrics to \u201cAmerica\u201d; one time Mayor of\u00a0Davenport,
\n\u00a0 charter member of Davenport National Bank,
\n\u00a0 organizer, director and attorney for Union Savings
\n\u00a0 Bank; president of the Iowa Bankers\u2019 Association;
\n\u00a0 vice-president of the Iowa Sons of the Revolution;
\n\u00a0 past Davenport city council member;
\n\u00a0 president of the Davenport Business Men\u2019s
\n\u00a0 Association; president of the Children\u2019s Home
\n\u00a0 Society of Iowa; director of Davenport\u2019s Academy of
\n\u00a0 Science; Director of Davenport\u2019s Ladies\u2019 Industrial
\n\u00a0 Relief Association; director of Davenport Library
\n\u00a0 Association; attorney; husband, father, and
\n\u00a0 resident of one of the most resplendent mansions
\n\u00a0 in all of Davenport.<\/p>\n

.<\/p>\n

All of these things describe Samuel Francis Smith.<\/p>\n

So does the phrase \u201cconvicted embezzler\u201d.<\/p>\n

Smith was charged with larceny and willful and corrupt perjury in 1904 for the misappropriation of at least $65,000 from the estates his friends had trusted him to administer for their bereaved widows. Smith is said to have creatively borrowed at least another $40,000 from charitable organizations he was affiliated with. The New York Times<\/em> reported on June 23, 1904 that an accounting found trust funds under Smith\u2019s supervision short $125,000.<\/p>\n

Convicted in October of 1904 at the age of 68, Smith was sentenced to eleven years in prison at Anamosa, Iowa. Once perhaps the wealthiest man in Davenport, he claimed to be penniless at his trial. Poor health expedited his release in August of 1909. He died of a heart attack shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n

(Posted by Karen)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0Son of the highly respected man who composed the \u00a0 lyrics to \u201cAmerica\u201d; one time Mayor of\u00a0Davenport, \u00a0 charter member of Davenport National Bank, \u00a0 organizer, director and attorney for Union Savings \u00a0 Bank; president of the Iowa Bankers\u2019 Association; … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[223,373],"class_list":["post-1662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-history","tag-biography","tag-samuel-francis-smith"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXc-qO","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1662"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1662\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1723,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1662\/revisions\/1723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}