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More than 100 years ago, James Albright wrote “Greensboro, 1808-1904: Facts, Figures, Traditions and Reminiscences,” and it’s still used by researchers.

Anyone who has ever written knows the sickening feeling when a reader cries “Error!”

Albright would have felt a kick in the stomach if he had seen Professor William Cunningham Smith’s copy of “Greensboro, 1808-1904.”

Smith, who taught from 1900 to 1941 at what’s now UNCG, used the word “error” and wrote corrections in the margins of Albright’s book published in 1904.

For example, Albright writes that Guilford County-born educator Calvin Wiley “was elected (state) superintendent of public education in 1840.”

Smith scribbles in the margin, Wiley “served 1852-1865.” Another historian says Wiley served until 1866.

Smith’s margin notes also point out an error in Albright’s list of early Greensboro school superintendents.

And he says Albright erred in writing Greensboro’s Lindsay Street School — North Carolina’s first public school, which Smith attended — opened in 1872. Smith says it was 1874.

Smith challenges Albright’s description of Lindsay Street’s interior. Albright says the demolished school, at what’s now Lindsay and North Church streets, had five rooms. Smith says it had seven.

As proof, Smith draws — what’s bound to be a historically important map — of the two-story layout with sections for boys and girls.

Smith corrects misspelled names. He asks pointed questions, such as “What year?” after Albright refers to a May city election.

Albright, born in 1835 in a hotel at Elm and Market streets, was a printer whose presses churned out copies of the city’s early newspapers.

He fought for the Confederacy. He also watched Greensboro grow from small village to a medium-size city.

As an elected alderman, he helped write the charter in 1870 upgrading Greensboro from town to city.

Professor Smith, born here to a prominent Presbyterian family, held two doctorates and over time led UNCG’s history and English departments and served as the college’s dean.

Smith’s copy of Albright’s book now has a special designation at UNCG’s Jackson Library.

Archivist Carolyn Shankle was working on another project recently in a room where copies of Albright’s book are stored. The copy belonging to Smith caught her attention because of the annotations.

Shankle says the library obtained the copy in 1950, six years after Smith’s death, from the massive library the workaholic professor had at his Spring Garden Home.

A neighbor once commented the light burned in Smith’s library until 2 a.m.

Annotated copies have importance if done by respected authors, literary critics and academic experts.

Julius Foust, who succeeded founder Charles D. McIver as UNCG’s president in 1906, annotated books he read. So did McIver.

Randall Jarrell, a former American poet laureate who taught at UNCG until his death in 1965, wrote brutal margin notes, even in books by friends and colleagues.

Smith could be picky. Albright wrote that a private school in the 1860s on North Edgeworth Street stood at what was, in 1904, the residence of Judge David Schenck. Smith’s margin note says “stables,” meaning the school had been located where Schenck kept his horses not his family.

Albright didn’t describe the building, but Smith wrote anyway, “A beautiful building, ha!”

Not all of Smith’s comments were acerbic. Occasionally, the professor added information to what Smith wrote. Many pages lack comments.

Presumably, this implies Albright got most of his book right.

In the book’s acknowledgment, Albright seemed to anticipate the likes of Smith.

“I do not aspire,” he wrote, “to the title of historian.”

Contact Jim Schlosser at 601-9879 or beale1@clearwire.net