Smith, William (5), D.D.
Smith, William (3), D.D.
an Episcopalian clergyman, was born in Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1727, and was graduated at the college in his native city in 1747. For three years he taught a parochial school, and in 1750 came to the United States. He acted as private tutor in the family of Gov. Martin, on Long Island, for two years, when he was invited to take charge of the Seminary in Philadelphia, which has since become the University of Pennsylvania. He accepted, went to England for holy orders, and being ordained in December, 1753, returned, and in the May following took charge of the institution. In 1759 he returned to England and received his degree of D.D. from the University of Oxford, and about the same time from Aberdeen College. A few years after the same degree was conferred upon him by Trinity College, Dublin. In 1766 the mission in Oxford being vacant, Dr. Smith undertook to supply it twice in three weeks, and was placed by his own request on the list of the society’s missionaries the next year. Dr. Smith held a somewhat indecisive attitude in the contest that resulted in the nation’s independence. The charter of the College of Philadelphia being taken away in November, 1779, Dr. Smith became rector of Chester Parish, Md. and established a classical seminary, which in June, 1782, was chartered as Washington College, of which he became president. He was president of the convention which organized the Protestant Episcopal Church, and in June following was elected bishop of Maryland; but finding strong opposition to an episcopate in that state, and others elsewhere opposed to his consecration, he gave up the matter altogether. In 1783 he took charge also of St. Paul’s Parish, Kent Co., which he held for two years. He was on the committee appointed in 1785 to revise the Prayer book. In 1789, the charter of the College of Philadelphia having been restored, he again became its president. He died at Philadelphia, May 14, 1803. Dr. Smith was a learned scholar, an eloquent and greatly popular preacher, and distinguished as a teacher of the liberal sciences, and an astronomer. He was the author of many occasional sermons, addresses, letters, pamphlets, etc., of which a selection was published, with a preface by bishop White, under the title of The Works of William Smith, D.D. (Phila. 1803, 2 vols. 8vo). For a complete list of these works, see Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, 5, 161; also Allibone, Dict. of Brit. and Amer. Authors, s.v.; Duyckinck, Cyclop. of Amer. Lit. 1, 388; Rich, Bibl. Amer. Nova, 1, 111, 129, 225, 245, 379.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Smith, William (4), D.D.
an Episcopal clergyman, was born in Scotland about 1754, and came, an ordained minister, to the United States in 1785. Shortly after he was settled in Stepney Parish, Md., and after remaining there two years became rector of St. Paul’s Church, Narraganset, R.I. He left Jan. 28, 1790, to assume the rectorship of Trinity Church, Newport. R.I. He was instrumental in organizing the Church in Rhode Island. He left Newport April 12, 1797, to take charge of St. Paul’s Church, Norwalk, Conn., where he remained until 1800, when he removed to New York, where he opened a grammar school. In 1802 he became principal of the Episcopal Academy at Cheshire, N.Y., which he left in 1806, and returned to New York, where he died, April 6, 1821. He was author of The Reasonableness of Setting Forth the Praises of God (N.Y. 1814, 12mo): -Essays on the Christian Ministry: Chants for Public Worship: Office of Institution of Ministers, in the American Prayer book: also occasional sermons and articles in periodicals. See Allibone, Dict. of Brit. and Amer. Authors, s.v.; Sprague, Annals of the Amer. Pulpit, 5, 345.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Smith, William (5), D.D.
a Presbyterian minister, was born in Harrisburg, Pa., July 17, 1793, He entered Jefferson College, and after his graduation was appointed to a tutorship in the same. In 1821 he was inducted into the professorship of ancient languages. He held this position with marked ability for a quarter of a century, when, on the division of the chair and the appointment of a professor of the Latin language, he was made vice-president of the college and professor of the Greek language and literature. Such he continued at the union of the Canonsburg and Jefferson colleges in 1865. Dr. Smith was a profound linguist, and an able teacher of the languages. Preferring retirement after so long a service, he resigned, and was made emeritus professor, the college being unwilling to part with a man of such eminent attainments. He died at Canonsburg, July 17, 1878. (W.P.S.)