Zachariah Frederick Smith, the Kentucky historian, was born near
Eminence, Kentucky, January 7, 1827. He was educated at Bacon College,
Harrodsburg, Kentucky. During the Civil War he was president of Henry
College at New Castle, Kentucky. From 1867 to 1871 he was
superintendent of public instruction in Kentucky. Professor Smith was
subsequently interested in various enterprises, and for four years he
was connected with the publishing firm of D. Appleton and Company. For
more than fifty years he was a curator of Transylvania University. His
_History of Kentucky_ (Louisville, 1885; 1892), is the only exhaustive
and readable history of the Commonwealth from the beginnings down to
the date of its publication. In a sense it is the chronicles of the
Collinses transformed from the encyclopedic to the continuous
narrative form. Professor Smith's other works are: _A School History
of Kentucky_ (Louisville, 1889); _Youth's History of Kentucky_
(Louisville, 1898); _The Mother of Henry Clay_ (Louisville, 1899); and
_The Battle of New Orleans_ (Louisville, 1904). He spent the final
years of his life upon _The History of the Reformation of the 19th
Century, Inaugurated, Advocated, and Directed by Barton W. Stone, of
Kentucky: 1800-1832_, which was almost ready for publication when he
died. In this work Professor Smith set forth that Barton W. Stone, and
not Alexander Campbell, was the founder of the Christian
("Campbellite") so-called "reformation" in this State, and that its
adherents are "Stoneites," not "Campbellites," as they are called by
the profane. Professor Smith died at Louisville, Kentucky, July 4,
1911, but he was buried at Eminence.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _Kentucky in the Nation's History_, by R. M. McElroy
(New York, 1909); _The Register_ (Frankfort, Kentucky, September,
1911).