Caleb Blood Smith (April 16, 1808 – January 7, 1864) was a United States representative from Indiana, the 6th U.S. secretary of the interior and a district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Indiana.

Education and career

thumb|left|200px|Smith 1860–64

Born on April 16, 1808, in Boston, Massachusetts, Smith moved with his parents to Ohio in 1814. He attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, from 1825 to 1826, Cincinnati College (now the University of Cincinnati) and read law in 1828. When Lincoln showed the draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet, the conservative Smith considered resignation upon its public announcement, but accepted the decision in the end. when they opened up in Indianapolis. There is a mausoleum at Crown Hill in Indianapolis but Smith is not buried there.

SEARCH FOR SMITH'S BODY

An investigation into this and opening of mausoleum in 1977 proved that Smith was not there only his wife and child. In 1977 an excavation in the Connersville City Cemetery in Indiana in the Smith-Watton lot was carried out with permission from family members to locate Smith's body. Smith was also not found there.

It has been said that Caleb B. Smith's body is buried in a Connersville, Indiana cemetery. In 1977, John Walker, a Connersville, Indiana resident, received permission from the Smith family, Norvella Thomas Copes, and Nancy S. Hurley, and the city of Connersville, Indiana, to excavate the body of Caleb Blood Smith. Walker had an interest in President Abraham Lincoln, and discovered in reading about Lincoln that one of his cabinet members was buried in the city he lived in. An excavation was carried out in the Smith-Watton lot in November 1977, but Smith's body was not there. It was Smith's son-in-law William Watton Smith that was found. C.B. Smith's wife, Elizabeth B. Watton, had paid $500 for the choice of plots, in Crownhill Cemetery[1] and moved the body from Greenlawn Cemetery to Crown Hill Cemetery in Indianapolis for fear of southern dissenters, the Sons of Liberty, desecrating his body and of local teens knocking over the markers in Greenlawn. A letter inquiring about the whereabouts of Smith's body found in the 1980s arose from a New York public library in the 1930s.

The letter was written April 24, 1936 by Louis J. Bailey, Chief Librarian of the Queens Borough Public Library in New York and sent a letter to a Miss Dunn, a librarian in Connersville, In. He inquired to Miss Dunn in regards to the location of Smith's body. In that letter he states that He enclosed a letter from Senator New about Smith to her. Louis talks of records saved in the Indiana Library from Green Lawn Cemetery, where C.B.Smith was originally buried,(because Crown Hill cemetery had not yet opened) and discusses possible locations, misspellings of the Watton name. (Walton and Watton). Caleb Smiths wife was Elizabeth Watton, but few have it listed as Walton. The correct spelling is WATTON.

Lincoln Memorial University has also inquired about the location of Smiths' body, in a letter to my grandfather, John Walker.

A 55-page research paper by John Walker on Smith reveals evidence that was discovered in 2009 listing names of those who have researched and written their findings on Caleb Smith. Offering possibilities of his being buried in someone else's grave, secret midnight burials, curses, and other findings, this paper has much to offer in the way of newspaper articles, letters, and family tales of where he is buried.

Freemason

Smith became a Freemason in Warren Lodge No. 15 at Connersville in 1829. He would go on to serve as Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Indiana in 1837. Today, the highest award presented by the Grand Lodge of Indiana is the Caleb B. Smith Medal of Honor. Today Smith's former home, Also known as Elmhurst in Connersville Indiana is the home of the Connersville Masonic Lodge #15 that went into operation in 1940. Smith's former home is on the national register of Historic Homes.

References

Sources

  • The Department of Everything Else: Highlights of Interior History (1989)
  • "Weird Mystery" a story about Caleb Blood Smith, can be found at http://www.libraries.iub.edu by typing in the search bar. This is a story written by John Walker and co-written by Cynthia Long, John Walker's granddaughter.
  • Sanford, Wayne L. "Cemeteries" The Encyclopedia of Indianapolis. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994. googlebooks Retrieved May 21, 2009
  • https://archive.org/details/WeirdMystery/page/n35/mode/2up?view=theater

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