Jacob Smith

• formal_name:
• first_date: 1820
• last_date: 1820
• function: Publisher, Papermaker
• locales: Winchester
• precis: Publisher of a Methodist sermon in Winchester in 1820.
• notes: Publisher, Papermaker
  Winchester
  Publisher of a single Methodist sermon in Winchester in 1820.
  Jacob Smith was not a tradesman, per se, but rather the patron for a work issued from the press of George McGlassin (287) in 1820.
  That title was a reprinting of an English Methodist tract by Richard Treffry, Sr. (1771-1842): A Sermon, On Christian Perfection. At the time, the Methodist Church in the United States was in crisis, having suffered the death of its founder, Francis Asbury (1745-1816), just four years before. The debates that ensued among the church's leaders echoed similar ones then rending the English church over the precept of "Christian Holiness," or finding salvation via an individual's faith, which was at the foundation of the ministry of John Wesley (1703-91), a key figure in Methodism's founding. Treffry's sermon defended Wesley's idealism against those Anglican clerics who continued to advocate the Calvinist precept of predestination, or salvation by God's grace alone. A similar argument emerged in America after Asbury died, and publication of Treffry's sermon in Baltimore, the headquarters of the American church, shortly after it was issued in England, provides evidence of the intensity of that debate here. By 1820, the dearth of unsold copies of that initial American edition evidently prompted Virginian Jacob Smith to contract publication of a second edition in Winchester.
  Remarkably, there are no surviving copies of the original English edition or the Baltimore reissue, which left only reprintings of Treffry's discourse in sermon collections for scholars to consult in the nineteenth century. But the later efforts of bibliographers Ralph Shaw and Richard Shoemaker uncovered many previously unknown works, including the Winchester item (1820.A13) discussed above. The only known copy of that work, held by the American Antiquarian Society, retains its wrapper, complete with an advertisement for McGlassin's press and his paper supplier:
  "All kinds of paper manufactured and sold by Jacob Smith & Barbour, at Redbud Paper-Mill, near Winchester."
  That single sheet establishes both the publisher's trade and the probable source of paper for the five printing offices then operating in the northern Valley.
  However, exactly who Jacob Smith was remains uncertain, as does his life story. The 1820 census listed eleven like-named individuals in Frederick County and the adjoining ones. The most likely of those people was a Shepherdstown resident who was the only Jacob Smith recorded as heading a household with persons engaged in manufacturing (2), the customary reference for mill workers and owners. The distance of Shepherdstown from the mill site on Redbud Run, northeast of Winchester, might argue against making such an inference; but the Barbour noted in their advertisement was certainly William Barbour of Berryville, whose household included thirteen members engaged in manufacturing. Redbud Run crosses the terrain between Winchester and Berryville, roughly parallel to today's Berryville Pike to the south, and ends at the Opequon Creek just west of Berryville. Regrettably, neither partner is recorded in the 1830 census for Virginia, nor are they seen in Winchester newspapers after 1820. That void makes this tattered wrapper the sole evidence of their partnership and of their association with this Frederick County mill.
  Nonetheless, the Redbud paper-mill continued long after Smith & Barbour's association with it had ended. It was one of five mills constructed on a two-mile stretch of the stream above the Opequon; together they created a satellite village that was named after the run, one requiring a post-office of its own by 1828. Ultimately, the mill was destroyed during the military activities around Winchester during the Civil War, probably in 1863.
  
  
  
  No verifiable Personal Data yet discovered.
  
  Sources: Imprint (Shoemaker 3472); Hofstra, Planting of New Virginia; Federal Decennial Census (1820).
  
• Related Bios:
  • George McGlassin

This version of the Index of Virginia Printing was a gift from the estate of the site's creator, David Rawson. The content contained herein will not be updated, as it is part of the Library of Virginia's personal papers collection. For more information, please see David Rawson Index of Virginia Printing website. Accession 53067. Personal papers collection, The Library of Virginia, Richmond, Virginia.