ABSTRACT
John Henry Smyth was born in Virginia in 1844. At about eight years of age he was sent to Philadelphia, where he attended a Quaker school, and in 1862 was graduated from the Institute of Colored Youth. After a year’s independent study he was admitted to the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia and in 1865 went to London to prepare for a career on the stage. Failing in this, he returned to America and entered the Howard University Law School in 1869. After graduation he held numerous government posts, including clerk in the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, the Census Department, the Revenue Department, and the Freedmen’s Bank. Later he was a member of the North Carolina Constitutional Convention of 1875.
