Philander Smith


Philander Smith was an American real estate agent and philanthropist. Philander Smith College is his namesake.

Biography

Philander Smith was the son of David Smith, whose 1801 sawmill in upstate New York gave name to the village of Smith’s Mills.
Among the early settlers at Oak Park, Illinois, Smith and wife Adeline provided financial assistance to Methodist missions in India, China, and Japan.
His widow Adeline continued to give away his $125,000 fortune to a number of causes for a dozen years after his 1882 death. Her gift that year to the Methodists’ Walden Seminary in Little Rock, Arkansas resulted in its immediate renaming as Philander Smith College.

Legacy