Collection ID:

Collection context

Summary

Creator:
Historic Geneva
Extent:
Three Boxes and Four Ledgers
Language:
English

Background

Scope and Content:

This collection covers the years 1817 through 1930 and includes deeds, mortgages, bonds, protests, catalogs, photos, invoices, and receipts. Deeds and tax receipts for land in Utah, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, and others addressed to W&T Smith Co. point to their ownership of land in these states with connections to other nurseries. Most dates for deeds/mortgages/bonds are those for the date the deed was recorded by the clerk, not the date on the deed itself.

Also included are police paperwork for army deserters 1901-1922 and forged/bogus checks all pointing to Chief of Police Daniel Kane; origins of this and why it is in this collection are unknown.

Biographical / Historical:

The W.T. & E. Smith & Co. nursery was founded by William Smith and his brothers Thomas and Edward in 1846. William Smith gained practical experience under the tutelage of Isaac Hildreth whose garden nursery was William’s training ground and eventually the nucleus of the Smith & Maxwell nurseries on Castle St. Edward would eventually leave the business in 1863, which was renamed W. & T. Smith & Co., and started his own orchards on 60 acres for the New York Market as Edward Smith & Co. With the downturn of the nursery business during the Civil War, Edward tried to rejoin his brothers in business but they refused.

The two Smith brothers would buy out the firm of Richardson and Nicholas located at White Springs Farm in the 1870s and a lithograph of their home-grounds published in the 1876 History of Ontario County shows their huge expanse of land on Castle St. During this time they employed fifty to one hundred men, William traveled to Europe often for seeds to supplement the American varieties, and their lands covered 500 acres.

At the end of the 19th century, William was the sole surviving brother, Thomas and Edward had died in 1895 within a few months of each other. Thomas’ son Theodore would assume control of W&T Smith & Co in 1912, after the death of William, and continued as president of the company until shortly before his death in 1943.

In the late 1910s, the Smiths began to sell lots for houses and would sell the remainder of Smith’s Park to a real estate developer in the 1920s. Effects of the Great Depression led to numerous changes for the nurseries and by 1943 the only way to say the company was to reorganize after declaring partial bankruptcy. Theodore ceded his presidency to his son, T. Schuyler Smith, who assumed control of the W.T. Smith Corporation. T. Schuyler spent much of his time trying to stave off new disaster, according to Warren Hunting Smith, and eventually the business was bought out by Daniel P. Quigley who had just left Maxwell, Bowden & Rice Nurseries.

In the early 1960s, Quigley ran W&T Smith as a door to door business, joining WK Brandow who had left Stern’s Nurseries. The company then became known as Garden Galleries, Inc. and the last remaining original acreage was sold in 1992 by Brandow and Quigley.

Acquisition information:
The origins of this collection are unknown but seem to derive from the same source.

Access

RESTRICTIONS:

Ledgers only available upon request.

LOCATION OF THIS COLLECTION:
Geneva History Museum
543 South Main Street
Geneva, NY 14456, United States
CONTACT:
315-789-5151
archivist@historicgeneva.org