teacher, businessman, politician, b. Middletown, Conn. He graduated from Wesleyan Univ., Conn. (1854), and in the same year moved to Wisconsin, serving briefly as tutor at the Univ. of Wisconsin. Smith was also active in several early Wisconsin promotional enterprises, chief of which was the Fox-Wisconsin improvement venture. In 1858 he was publisher of the Fond du Lac Union. Returning to the East in 1860, he served as assistant professor of mathematics (1860-1863) at the U.S. Naval Academy. In 1863 he settled permanently in Appleton, Wis. A Republican, he was state senator (1866-1867), and from 1868 to 1874 was a regent of the Univ. of Wisconsin. In Appleton, Smith was instrumental in organizing the First National Bank (1870), and in 1883 helped organize the Appleton Edison Light Co., Ltd., which provided the first hydroelectric-powered central lighting system in the world. In 1891 Smith organized the Appleton Edison Electric Co., a consolidation of lighting and street railway companies, but this enterprise failed in 1896, and a similar venture later organized by Smith failed in 1901, shortly before his death. F. McDonald, Let There Be Light (Madison, 1957); W. A. Goodspeed, et al., Hist. of Outagamie Co. (Chicago [1911]); A. J. Aikens and L. A. Proctor, eds., Men of Progress. Wis. (Milwaukee, 1897).

The Wisconsin Historical Society has manuscripts related to this topic. See the catalog description of the Augustus Ledyard Smith Papers for details.

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[Source: Dictionary of Wisconsin biography]