Seba Smith on:
[Wikipedia]
[Google]
[Amazon]
Seba Smith (September 14, 1792 – July 28, 1868) was an American humorist and writer. He was married to Elizabeth Oakes Smith, also a writer, and he was the father of
* ''The Life and Writings of Major Jack Downing, of Downingville, Away Down East in the State of Maine'' (Under pseudonym, Major Jack Downing.) (1833)
* ''John Smith's Letters With "Picters" to Match'' (1839)
* ''Powhatan: A Metrical Romance in Seven Cantos'' (1841)
* ''May-Day in New-York; or, House-Hunting and Moving...''(Later published under the title ''Jack Downing's Letters''.) (1845)
* ''Dew-Drops of the Nineteenth Century'', ed. (1846)
* ''New Elements of Geometry'' (1850)
* ''Way Down East; or, Portraitures of Yankee Life'' (1854)
* ''My Thirty Years Out of the Senate'' (Under pseudonym, Major Jack Downing.) (1859)
* ''The Great Republic,'' ed. (1859)
Seba Smith (September 14, 1792 – July 28, 1868) was an American humorist and writer. He was married to Elizabeth Oakes Smith, also a writer, and he was the father of Appleton Oaksmith
Appleton Oaksmith (February 12, 1825 – October 29, 1887), of Carteret County, North Carolina, was the son of Seba Smith and Elizabeth Oakes Smith. He legally adopted a port-manteau surname, combining the phonetic equivalent of his mother's mid ...
.
Biography
Born in Buckfield, Maine, Smith graduated fromBowdoin College
Bowdoin College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Brunswick, Maine. When Bowdoin was chartered in 1794, Maine was still a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The college offers 34 majors and 36 minors, as well as several joint eng ...
in 1818 and then lived in Portland, Maine. He edited various papers, including the '' Eastern Argus'', and founded the ''Portland Courier'', which he edited from 1830 to 1837.
He was one of the first writers to use American vernacular in humor, likely inspired by writer and critic John Neal. His series with the New England character ''Major Jack Downing'' was popular after its start in 1830.
Under date of November 26, 1833, John Quincy Adams records in his diary an encounter with Colonel David Crockett, newly returned to Congress, whom he quotes as saying that he (Crockett) "had taken for lodgings two rooms on the first floor of a boarding-house, where he expected to pass the winter and to have for a fellow-lodger Major Jack Downing, the only person in whom he had any confidence for information of what the Government was doing."
His dry, satirical humor influenced other 19th century humorists, including Artemus Ward
Charles Farrar Browne (April 26, 1834 – March 6, 1867) was an American humor writer, better known under his ''pen name, nom de plume'', Artemus Ward, which as a character, an illiterate rube with "Yankee common sense", Browne also played in pub ...
and Finley Peter Dunne. He is also credited as being a forerunner of other American humorists like Will Rogers
William Penn Adair Rogers (November 4, 1879 – August 15, 1935) was an American vaudeville performer, actor, and humorous social commentator. He was born as a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, in the Indian Territory (now part of Oklahoma ...
. He also penned the American folk ballad " Young Charlotte".
Select publications
* ''The Life and Writings of Major Jack Downing, of Downingville, Away Down East in the State of Maine'' (Under pseudonym, Major Jack Downing.) (1833)
* ''John Smith's Letters With "Picters" to Match'' (1839)
* ''Powhatan: A Metrical Romance in Seven Cantos'' (1841)
* ''May-Day in New-York; or, House-Hunting and Moving...''(Later published under the title ''Jack Downing's Letters''.) (1845)
* ''Dew-Drops of the Nineteenth Century'', ed. (1846)
* ''New Elements of Geometry'' (1850)
* ''Way Down East; or, Portraitures of Yankee Life'' (1854)
* ''My Thirty Years Out of the Senate'' (Under pseudonym, Major Jack Downing.) (1859)
* ''The Great Republic,'' ed. (1859)
References
*Further reading
*White, Jonathan W. (2023). ''Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade''. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield.External links
* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Seba 1792 births 1868 deaths American humorists Bowdoin College alumni People from Buckfield, Maine Writers from Portland, Maine