ISRAEL SMITH was born in Suffield, Connecticut. He graduate from Yale in 1781 and settled in Rupert, Vermont, where he was admitted to the Bar. He represented Rupert in the Vermont General Assembly in 1785 and from 1788 to 1790. In 1789 he was a member of the joint Vermont-New York Boundary Commission. And he was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention at Bennington in 1791. He was a U.S. Representative from 1791 to 1797 and from 1801 to 1803. In 1797 he was Chief Justice of the Vermont Supreme Court. Defeated by Isaac Tichenor in the gubernatorial race of 1801, he went on to serve as a U.S. Senator form 1803 to 1807. He came back to defeat Tichenor in 1807, but Tichenor defeated him again one year later. Smith retired from public life and died in Rutland.