Joel Sumner Smith papers

Joel Sumner Smith, son of David Hume and Tirzah (Howe) Smith, was born on September 11, 1830, in Paxton, Worcester County, Mass. Thence the family removed to Easthampton, Mass., where his preparation for college was completed in 1847. Another removal now intervened, to Wisconsin, with the result that Mr. Smith spent the next two years teaching music in a Young Ladies' Seminary in Racine.

After graduation he remained in New Haven, and for more than twenty years devoted himself with success to the thorough study of music and to its teaching as a profession.

While still thus engaged his interest in musical history led him in 1874 to undertake (without compensation) an exhaustive catalogue of the Lowell Mason Library of Church Music, which had just been placed in the Yale Divinity School. This employment led happily to a closer connection with the university, which began in July, 1875, when he was put in charge of the Linonian and Brothers Library. His activity and precision in this partial occupation proved so invaluable that he was soon induced to withdraw entirely from his former profession and give all his time to the Library. His position remained nominally the same until 1894, but after that date he was wholly occupied in the University Library, with the rank of Assistant Librarian, which had virtually been his position for many years before. His duties were mainly those of a cataloguer, which called into play and developed his remarkable exactness and capacity for minute labor and thorough research.

To fit himself more fully for his work he took up at an early date the study of Russian, to which he added subsequently a knowledge of other Slavonic languages. One fruit of these studies was the publication in 1886 (and second edition in 1887) of "Red-nosed Frost," an anonymous version in the original metres of a poem by N. A. Nekrásov a difficult piece of work, admirably executed.

His studies also led him to the task of collecting a library of about six thousand volumes of representative Russian literature, selected with rare judgment; and in 1896 he printed (in Liepzig) a careful catalogue of this collection, to accompany its transfer to the university. By his strict injunction the source of this large gift was kept a secret, as was also his subsequent devotion of a considerable portion of his income to supplying the wants of the musical department of the Library. It can now be said that these benefactions amounted to nearly $12,000. His best gift, however, which could not be hidden, was his shining example of loyal, ungrudging service and the lavish devotion of all his powers to the duties entrusted to him.

In the summer of 1901 his health began to fail perceptibly, and in the spring of 1902 he was forced to accept the offer of partial relief from daily service; after a few final months of painful retirement he died suddenly at his home in New Haven, on February 13, 1903, in his 73d year.

He was married, on May 28, 1854, in New Haven, to Miss Elizabeth Mary Davis, of this city, who survives him with their only child (Y. C. 1879)

(Taken from Yale University Obituary Record, 1900-1910, 232-233.)