By Ron Dutcher
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Horace Smith may have been one of the early jewelers (H. Smith) who partnered with A. G. Bagley and were sued for breach of partnership in the 1860s. If so, it didn't slow him down much.
Smith made many fine dip pens and towards the 1880s he began representing fountain pen makers at his shop. Smith was the first New York agent to represent Bloomsburg pen maker Paul Wirt and his fountain pen, one of the early leading fountain pen manufacturers in the 1880s and 1890s.
Smith is famous in that he was the first pen seller to sell a Paul Wirt pen to Mark Twain. In the early 1900s Smith sold a lot of taper capped, pearl slab pens like the one below.
For more information, see the entry for Smith in the Glossopedia.
This article is part of the Manhattan Pen Makers Project, originated by Ron L. Dutcher. Except for typographical corrections, the text is as Ron published it. Ron wanted to include photos of advertisements or pens from each maker; he had some photos, but the gallery was far from complete. Photos here are a mixture of what Ron had and what I have been able to add from my own photo library. As with other reference articles on this site, you should not take this information as absolutely authoritative or complete.