This Medal of Honor was awarded to Sergeant Major Christian Fleetwood, 4th U.S.
Portrait Medal of James Smithson
Grade Range: 5-12
Resource Type(s): Artifacts, Primary Sources
Date Posted:
6/10/2009
James Smithson was born in 1765, the illegitimate son of Sir Hugh Smithson, later known as Sir Hugh Percy, Baronet, 1st Duke of Northumberland, K.G., and Elizabeth Hungerford Keate. Elizabeth Keate had been married to James Macie, and so Smithson first bore the name of James Lewis Macie.
His mother later married Mark Dickinson, by whom she had another son. When she died in 1800, he and his half-brother inherited a sizable estate. He changed his name at this time from Macie to Smithson...
National Standards
United States History Standards (Grades 5-12)
Era 4: Expansion and Reform (1801-1861)
2: How the industrial revolution, increasing immigration, the rapid expansion of slavery, and the westward movement changed the lives of Americans and led toward regional tensions
3: The extension, restriction, and reorganization of political democracy after 1800
4: The sources and character of cultural, religious, and social reform movements in the antebellum period