Hollis A. Smith Papers
A native of Haverhill, Mass., and graduate of the University of Maine (BF, 1925) and Harvard (MF, 1927), Hollis A. Smith attempted to establish a career in forestry in the late 1920s. Working as superintendent of the new Martha’s Vineyard State Forest and as a consulting forester associated with the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Smith worked with clients to develop planting and harvesting plans and to care for the trees. With his practice languishing, Smith settled in Martha’s Vineyard and worked as a surveyor and other positions.
This collection contains correspondence, job reports, and ephemera from Hollis Smith’s relatively brief career as a consulting forester in Massachusetts, nearly all concentrated in the years 1929-1931. Nearly half of the collection consists of correspondence with clients (or potential clients), with a few interesting reports on properties.
Background on Smith, Hollis A.
Hollis Ayer Smith was born in Haverhill, Massachusetts, on March 14, 1903, the son of Bertha (Charlestworth) Smith and Fred A. Smith, a manufacturer of leather counters for the shoe industry. After graduating from the University of Maine in 1925 and earning a Masters of Forestry from Harvard (1928), Smith set out to build a career as a forester. After the Martha’s Vineyard State Forest was established in 1925, he was appointed forest superintendent, overseeing work on planting and fire line construction, but in 1927, he became a student again, working under A. C. Cline at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Mass. On the side, he maintained a private consulting business, with clients from Cape Cod to New Hampshire.
Smith’s business, however, never really prospered. By 1930, he informed a friend, Lawrence Rathbun, that with consulting work drying up, he would return to the Vineyard to focus on surveying, keeping forestry as a sideline. By the time of the 1940 federal census, Smith was recorded as living in Tisbury and working as a manager of a golf course. He died in Tisbury on February 6, 1988.
Scope of collection
This collection contains correspondence, job reports, and ephemera from Hollis Smith’s relatively brief career as a consulting forester in Massachusetts. Nearly half of the collection consists of correspondence with clients (or potential clients), with a few interesting reports on properties: detailing the space, planting proposals, plans for maintaining the condition of the property, and concerns for dealing with insect or fungal infestation.
Smith’s clients included both private landowners and organizations such as the Central New England Sanatorium in Rutland, Mass., with the majority located in the Cape and Islands, central Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. The collection also includes some correspondence and ephemera relating to meetings of professional forestry associations in the early 1930s.
Inventory
Administrative information
Access
The collection is open for research.
Provenance
Acquired from the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation Archives, Sept. 2016.
The Smith collection was discovered by Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation staff person in June 2016 at the Correllus State Forest facility on Martha’s Vineyard (formerly the Martha’s Vineyard State Forest, est. 1925). The collection was considered out of scope for the DCR and transferred to SCUA.
Processing Information
Processed by Daniel Cronin, March 2017.
Language:
English
Copyright and Use (More information )
Cite as: Hollis A. Smith Papers (MS 965). Special Collections and University Archives, University of Massachusetts Amherst Libraries.
Search terms
Subjects
- Foresters–Massachusetts
- Sharon (Mass.)–Economic conditions–19th century.
Contributors
- Smith, Hollis A. [main entry]
- Smith, Hollis A.