Zachariah Frederick Smith

Zachariah Frederick Smith (1827-1911), who signed his title pages Zachary F. Smith, was a Kentucky educator who turned to writing history. He headed Henry College at New Castle before the Civil War, was elected state superintendent of public instruction in 1867, and used that office to rebuild the state's public schools; in 1869 he founded the Cumberland and Ohio Railroad Company and served as its president until 1873. His History of Kentucky (1886) was widely used and reissued in school editions. A member of the Filson Club in Louisville, he also contributed the opening part of the club's 1899 volume The Clay Family, on Henry Clay's mother.