GOING FOR GOLD

I enjoyed the August 2016 issue of Scottish Field. On Page 77 there was a piece about Victorian Scots who struck gold across the pond. There are other Victorian Scots who are mostly unknown today, who were among the richest men in the 19th century world.

George ‘Chicago’ Smith was a pioneer banker of Chicago in the mid-19th century who was born on 10 February 1808 to parents James Smith and Catherine Anderson on a farm (or croft) called Millhill in Aberdeenshire.

In 1833 he decided to seek his fortune in America and settled in Chicago in 1834. He arrived just as the US was coming out of a mild recession and as the western boom set in. He invested what little money he had into building lots and, beyond Chicago, lands where Milwaukee now stands. He cashed in his gains in 1836 and returned to Scotland. There he started the Scottish Illinois Land Investment Company and returned to America with business partners Patrick Strachan, Alexander Mitchell and W D Scott. Once again George’s timing was good as the country was beginning to recover after the financial panic of 1837. In 1839, George Smith opened the Wisconsin Marine and Fire Insurance Company and another bank in Chicago, George Smith & Co, the first legitimate bank in the West.

He returned to Scotland a very wealthy man. In his later years, Mr Smith rented rooms at the Reform Club in London. He lived there the rest of his life as a recluse at a reported cost of only 15 shillings per day. He died there on 6 October 1899 and was buried in Elgin. He left about £5,000,000 to his niece’s husband, Sir George Cooper, and a similar amount to a nephew, James Henry ‘Silent’ Smith, a stockbroker in New York City.

Well-known in their day, wealthy and a bit eccentric, the Smiths are largely forgotten. My grandfather’s uncle married into this Smith family and I came across them in my family research. Davis Roepke, Ontario, Canada