Agnes Gilkerson was born into a 2nd generation Scottish family in Barnet, Vermont in 1838. She showed a certain independence early in life, and decided to move away from farm life. In 1853 she settled in Lowell, Massachusetts where she became a “Mill Girl.” It was there that she met 37 year-old H.B.Smith. Within a year she left the industrial mills to become a clerk/secretary in the H.B.Smith Company. In 1858 she graduated from Mrs. Roger’s School in Lowell and enrolled in the Penn Medical University in Philadelphia, graduating in 1859. After receiving her Doctor of Medicine with a major in Chemistry,
Agnes returned to Lowell in 1861 and resided with H.B. Smith at his rooms in the Newsmith Building on Merrimack Street. There she began practicing medicine.
In 1865, just before H.B. Smith purchased the village of Shreveville in Burlington County, he returned to Woodstock, Vermont to try to negotiate a divorce from his wife, Eveline Verona English, the mother of his four children. When she refused, he took matters in his own hands, returning to Lowell where he allegedly had a private wedding ceremony, marrying Agnes Gilkerson. Notices were sent to family and friends. Within weeks they were on their way to New Jersey.
The Smiths were received in Burlington County in 1865 as husband and wife. The abandoned village of Shreveville, with its mansion, factory complex and company houses, offered the Smiths everything they needed for their growing manufacturing business. In addition to the substantial physical layout and the general location, it was placed in an agricultural landscape which both H.B. and Agnes longed for. Insulated by the surrounding farmland from other industrial and village areas, the Smiths would be free to create their own ideal mill village community, espousing many of the principles developed in the early labor movements of Europe in contrast to prevalent industrial conditions in the United States.
In addition to dabbling in the merchandising of her own patent medicines, Agnes served as the editor of The New Jersey Mechanic, a national publication that went beyond the bounds of the mechanic’s trade to include topics on travel, literature, philosophy, and medicine among others.
Agnes was H.B. Smith’s “point person,” focusing on the physical, intellectual, and spiritual development of the worker, providing such amenities to Smithville’s inhabitants as the Lyceum, opera house, library, public park and bandstand and school. Agnes Smith was recognized as a Burlington County Socialite and her horse and carriage trips to Mt. Holly for Sunday services at St. Andrew’s Church became public spectacles.
Agnes died in 1881, six years prior to the death of H.B. Smith. He had a statue erected in her memory in the gardens at Smithville.
The statue was destroyed under orders from Smith’s son, Elton, upon the resolution of the lawsuit surrounding H. B. Smith’s Last Will and Testament in favor of his Vermont family. Agnes is buried in St. Andrew’s Cemetery on Pine St., Mt. Holly alongside H.B. Smith.
