NJPH - New Jersey Postal History Society

HEZEKIAH B. SMITH’S INDUSTRIAL VILLAGE ~ Doug D’Avino
serving as editor of the New Jersey Mechanic, a weekly newspaper published by Smith. She
died, childless, in 1881.
William S. Kelley became the Postmaster in 1879. He was an inventor who held at least
nine patents and Vice President of H. B. Smith Machine Co., later to become company President
after Smith’s death. Like Smith, Kelley’s corporate duties would have made him Postmaster in
name only. It isn’t until 1908 that additional post office staff was added: Harvey E. Lippincott,
Deputy Postmaster, and Charles V. Bohannan, clerk.
Fig. 1: The H. B. Smith Machine Company, circa 1900, cropped from a real photo postcard, mailed from the
Smithville post office in 1912 (postmark inset). The red arrow points to a covered stairway up to the second-floor
company office; in 1930, the post office was re-located directly below the office (see Figure 2), with an entrance
on the side of the building. Elton Smith made no changes to the complex, so the factory looks exactly as it did
when H. B. Smith was running the company in the 1880s.
NJPH 198
Vol. 39/No. 4
Nov 2011 Whole No. 184