J. Brodie Smith

Joseph Brodie Smith stepped off the train in Manchester with only a $1.19 in his pocket and the boyhood dream that electricity would change the way people lived. He arrived from Richville, New York interested in a career that held no job prospects. During the day, he worked in a drug store and studied to be a pharmacist. At night, without the advantages of a technical education, Smith experimented with electricity and invented time-saving gadgets.

Before long, Smith had left the pharmaceutical business to make his way in electrical contracting. He continued to experiment with electricity and his work laid the groundwork for the complex electrical network in New Hampshire. Smith was an expert in his field and his accomplishments were quickly noticed by the heads of the emerging electric industry. By 1886, Smith had become the superintendent of the Ben Franklin Electric Company, an organization that was the main competitor of the Manchester Electric Light Company. In 1901 when the Manchester Traction, Light and Power Company was formed, Smith was hired as the General Manager and Director. He came to Public Service of New Hampshire in 1926, when Manchester Traction, Light and Power merged with Keene Gas and Electric, Ashuelot Gas and Electric, Laconia Gas and Electric, and the Souhegan Valley Electric Company.

As an inventor, Smith patented a number of electrical devices. In his home, he had electrical clocks in every room that were updated at regular intervals from radio signals emitted from the Arlington Observatory in Massachusetts. When PSNH opened in 1926, he installed a similar clock system in the company's new headquarters. Always interested in the latest technology, Smith developed a telephone system that tied all the plants together. Smith's phone system operated until New England Telephone Company took over the communications function of the system in 1940.

A pioneer in the field of electrical technology, J. Brodie Smith served as vice president of PSNH from 1926 until his retirement in 1946.