Career
He worked as a clerk in the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, and as a tutor in Scotland and for the two children of Josiah Martin in Long Island, New York. As the Martins' tutor, he wrote to Benjamin Franklin in 1750 to enquire about their enrollment into the Academy of Philadelphia. He included his pamphlet titled "A General Idea of the College of Mirania". In Latin, Mirania means "land of marvels". It outlined his thoughts about education and the development of a college in New York. The book was read by Benjamin Franklin and Richard Peters and greatly impressed them. They asked Smith to teach Logic, Rhetoric, Natural and Moral Philosophy at the Academy and Charitable School of Philadelphia.
In 1755 Smith became the first provost (the equivalent of the modern post of university president) of the school. He held the post until 1779. Smith was an Anglican priest and together with William Moore, Smith was briefly jailed in 1758 for his criticism of the military policy in the Quaker-run colony. Indeed, during the French and Indian War, Smith published two anti-Quaker pamphlets that advocated the disenfranchisement of all Quakers, who were the political elite in Pennsylvania. However, their pacifist beliefs made it difficult for the Quakers in government to provide funds for defense, and as a result anti-Quaker sentiment ran high, especially in the backcountry which suffered from frequent raids from Indians allied with the French. Smith's second pamphlet, A Brief View of the Conduct of Pennsylvania, For the Year 1755 (1756), actually went so far as to suggest that while one way of "ridding our Assembly of Quakers" would be to require an oath, "another way of getting rid of them" would be "by cutting their Throats." Smith's virulent attacks on Quakers alienated him from Franklin, who was closely allied with the Pennsylvania Assembly.
Smith advocated for the Church of England to appoint a bishop in America, a highly controversial proposal insofar as many Americans feared any ecclesiastical institution that might compel compliance with the force of royal authority. Smith received honorary Doctor of Divinity degrees from the University of Oxford and the University of Aberdeen in 1759 and from Trinity College, Dublin in 1763. In 1768 he became a member of the American Philosophical Society.
Smith was also the founding editor of The American Magazine, or Monthly Chronicle for the British Colonies, the first publication of its kind, which appeared from October 1757 until October 1758, when publication ceased owing to Smith's incarceration due to the previously mentioned libel action initiated by the Pennsylvania Assembly.
Smith's best known work as an author is "Bouquet's Expedition Against the Ohio Indians in 1764" (1765), an account of the last campaign in Pontiac's War, led by Colonel Henry Bouquet.
Records shows that Smith owned one enslaved person in 1769.
When the American Revolution broke out, Smith was in a bind. As an Anglican priest, he was viewed as a Loyalist, and was the suspected author of a series of anti-independence publications known as Cato's Letters. But his sentiments were far more sympathetic towards the Patriots than otherwise, even to the point of founding a college named for George Washington, the commander-in-chief of the Patriot Continental Army, in the midst of war. He was appointed to serve on the Philadelphia Committee of Correspondence in 1774, along with such notables as John Dickinson, Samuel Miles, and Joseph Reed.
In 1780, Smith moved to Chestertown, Maryland, where he founded and become the first president of Washington College, an institution that he intended to be the premiere academic institution of the region; it received almost exclusive patronage from the first President of the United States, George Washington. Smith continued to own enslaved persons while president of Washington College. He brought one teenage girl with him, acquired a second slave in 1783 and sold a third in 1803 who had tried twice to escape.
After the war, he returned to Philadelphia, where he briefly regained his post at Penn. He invested his fortune in land and owned approximately 70,000 acres. He founded and designed the town of Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, which was named after Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, one of the main benefactors to the Academy of Philadelphia. Smith's sons were the first leaders of the city government.
