F. Patterson Smith records

Historical/Biographical Note

Historical/Biographical Note

Frank Patterson Smith was born on October 10, 1870, in Laurel, Maryland, to Amzi and Hannah Smith. Frank had three siblings, Edith Smith Hawes, Carrie Smith Schreyer, and Amzi Smith, Jr. Amzi, Sr. was Superintendent of Documents to the United States Senate for approximately 30 years. Amzi died in 1907, and Frank designed his memorial.

Frank attended public secondary schools and received a certificate as a Special Student in Architecture from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass., in 1891. Frank Patterson Smith began working as a draughtsman in 1892 after completing his certificate. In the same year, Smith began working for H. Langford Warren, an established architect and later a professor of architecture and the founder and first Dean of the School of Architecture at Harvard College. Smith worked with Warren throughout a number of iterations of Warren’s firm and business partnerships, eventually becoming his partner in 1900 along with Maurice Bigelow Biscoe. Smith and Biscoe had been partners for one year before partnering with Warren. Biscoe left the practice leaving Warren and Smith as joint partners in 1906. Warren died unexpectedly in 1917 at the age of 60, after which Smith operated his own firm as F. Patterson Smith, Architect until his death in 1943. See Appendix B for a complete list of the dates of Smith’s associations with each firm. See Appendix C for a list of Smith’s clients.

Frank married Harriette Hoyt Marsh on November 16, 1896, in Winchester, Mass. Together, they had four children: Constance Allis Smith Joslin (mother of the donor), Oliver Van Patten Smith, Harriette Smith Short, and Cornelia Smith (Moore) Mazerski. Both Oliver Van Patten Smith and his wife, Gertrude Rachel Daniels, died in 1929. They were survived by their son, Frank Patterson Smith II (born in 1926) who was raised by his grandparents, Frank and Harriette. Frank died of pneumonia on April 2, 1943, in Winchester, Mass. Additional detailed biographical and professional information about F. Patterson Smith, his family, H. Langford Warren, and Maurice Bigelow Biscoe has been researched and compiled by Richard Joslin Smith and can be found in Series I (binder 1).

Sources

Materials in the collection.