DEATH OF "SILENT" SMITH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13485, 11 May 1907, Page 2 (Supplement)

DEATH OF "SILENT" SMITH.

■ : 5 /. . ROMANTIC STORY. // " Silent" Smith, one of the most remarkable of America's multi-millionaires, whose I fortune is estimated at £15,000,000, died on March 26 of heart disease, at Kyoto, in Japan, which ," he was visiting with." his wife on their wedding tour round the world. Until 1899 lie was. James Henry Smith, a taciturn, reserved man, with a small office in Wall-street, New York, and a small flat in an unfashionable part of the city. With the exception of the hour a day he spent at the '/Union Club he was never seen outside his office or his home. . ... In that year ; his still more eccentric cousin, Chicago" Smith, died at the Reform Club in London, where he had lived at a maximum cost of 18s a day, and left him a fortune of nearly £12.000,000. From being the least obtrusive of New Yorkers, " Silent" Smith became the most prominent. He joined twelve of the leading social .and sporting clubs, and had the distinction of being launched into society by Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish, as one of the' world's richest bachelors../ '■//-::/'."/;. , .-•■■:'-.' -.r.'./•;- ■;:; ; /He/always drove a four-in-hand, and bought the best horses that money could purchase. His entertainments were as freakish as they were magnificent. His valentine ball at Sherry's, and the musicale in the Fifth Avenue Palace, bought from Mr. W. C. Whitney's executors -for* £400,000, at which he paid Caruso £600 to sing, four songs, will be long talked of in New York. At this mansion he entertained the Duchess of Manchester and the foremost leaders of American society. He was the elusive catch, of many seasons; but last year he chose as his bride the beautiful Mrs. Rhinelander Stewart, of Baltimore—a sister of Mrs. A. J. Drexel. v Soon after their wedding Mr.. and Mrs. Smith started on a tour of the world, with the Duke and Duchess of Manchester, in Mr. Drcxel's magnificent steam yacht the Margherita. * '/'/,; ■ The great appreciation in the value of real estate in Chicago added largely to Mr. Smith's millions, and his railway stock holdings were also immense. -