FOLLOWING BIOGRAPHY ON BACK OF PLATE:

JOHN HENRY SMYTH, LL. D. John Henry Smyth, LL. D., ex-U. S. Minister Resident and consul-General to Liberia, was born in the city of Richmond. His parents were Sully Smyth of Lynch-burg, Campbell County, Va., and Ann Eliza, formerly Goode of Chesterfield County, Va. He received his first instruction from a lady of his own race, at a time when the laws of Virginia made it a penal offense to teach Negroes any other thing than manual labor. At the age of seven years he was sent to Philadelphia to be educated. He attended the public schools of that city four years and two private schools under the control and direction of friends or Quakers. He graduated from the Institute for Colored Youth, May 4, 1862. He displayed a decided taste and aptitude for the fine arts early in life, and at the age of sixteen years he became a student of art, and was admitted a member of the Life School of the Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia, a year before graduation. In 1870 he graduated from the Law School of Howard University. The same year he married the daughter of Rev. John Shippen, of Washington, D. C., Miss Fannie Ellen, a lady whom he had the pleasure of instructing in the first elocution class of Howard University. For eighteen years he was in the service of the United States, beginning as a first- class clerk and ending as United States Minister and Consul-General. For seven years he taught in the public schools of Pennsylvania, practiced law in the District of Columbia, North and South Carolina. On retiring from the diplomatic service in Liberia, two distinctions were conferred upon Mr. Smyth, by Liberia College, the honorary degree of LL. D., and by the President of Liberia, the Honorable Hilery Richard Wright Johnson, the order of Knight Commander of the Humane Order of African Redemption. There were only two Americans so honored by the Black Republic. At present Mr. Smyth is at the head of the Negro Reformatory Association of Virginia, a corporation resident in Virginia, with authority to establish reform schools for delinquent Negro minors of both sexes in Virginia. The first school of the association is the Virginia Manual Labor School, Hanover, Va., with 1,800 acres of land, 800 of which is under cultivation. The good people of Mr. Smyth's native city, Richmond, and friends in Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island and New York have made possible the purchase of the plantation known as Broad Neck, Hanover. The principal benefactor was Mr. Collis P. Huntington of New York, who was pleased to make a contribution of $12,000 toward this worthy and necessary charity.