Hawaii's World
By A.A. Smyser
Thursday, May 2, 1996
That fits James Smithson exactly. He was born at a very high level of society in 1765 to an English duke who wanted nothing to do with him and a wealthy mother who was a lineal descendant of King Henry VII.
His birth occurred in France but he went to England for his education, became a naturalized British citizen, graduated from Oxford with honors and soon returned to the European continent to spend most of the rest of his life. He never married.
He seemed to show his dislike of his situation by changing his name a couple of times before settling on James Smithson by the time he graduated from Oxford. Earlier he had been James Macie, his mother's name, and he had another name before that.
He was a scientist of such talent he was admitted to the Royal Society at age 22 for being "a gentleman well-versed in various branches of natural philosophy and particularly of chemistry and mineralogy." He eventually published 27 scientific papers before he died in Genoa, Italy, in 1829, aged 64. The mineral smithsonite was named for him.
His revenge is nothing short of one of the greatest gifts ever given to America. According to an 1826 will his considerable estate was to go to his nephew's offspring, but if the nephew died childless (as happened in 1835) then "to the United States of America to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, an establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge."
Today it is the largest and greatest museum complex in the world, a source of pride for all of us who are Americans. The modern-day Smithsonian also has provided the inspiration for the changes at Hawaii's Bishop Museum to make it a living institution with high public involvement instead a pure museum for collections and research.
Smithson's bequest, mostly from money given him by his mother, exceeded $500,000. That was a vast sum 160 years ago. Congress nevertheless stalled for 10 years before accepting it because of arguments over the will and the nature of the institution to be established. Today Congress gives it more than $300 million a year. Even budget-cutter Newt Gingrich has expressed his pride over it.
The act of acceptance was finally signed on Aug. 10, 1846, just short of 150 years ago. The cornerstone for the first of nine buildings on the Washington Mall (plus others elsewhere, even in New York City) was laid in 1847.
The original building, now called "the castle'' because it looks like one, was completed in 1855. To the left inside its main doors is a crypt room containing the tomb of Smithson, who never saw America alive.
Even his getting here caused controversy. His remains had to be relocated from their Genoa resting site in 1904 because a public works project needed the land.
Studies of the remains made in connection with the relocation showed Smithson, about whom surprisingly little was known, had been 5-feet-6 inches tall, had an extra vertebra, may have been a fencer because of the development of his shoulders, smoked a pipe and died of natural causes.
Some people wanted a monument to Smithson rivaling the Lincoln Memorial in size. Congress balked and the castle building site was chosen. The vast establishment around him is his monument.
It has entirely fulfilled his prediction that: "My name shall live in the memory of man when the titles of the Northumberlands and Percys (his father's family titles) are extinct and forgotten."
What a sweet revenge for him and America.