www.union.edu/Presidents/
First president of Union College, Dec. 9, 1795–May 1799
Born June 12, 1756 in Pequea, Pennsylvania, Smith was educated at the College of New Jersey, later Princeton University. Upon graduating from Princeton in 1773, Smith embarked on a dual career as an educator and clergyman, first in Virginia then in Pennsylvania. Princeton made him a Doctor of Divinity in 1795, and later that year Union College invited him to become its first president.
Little is known of Smith’s brief service as president of Union College. He made little effort to alter the curriculum established by the trustees, and his tenure as president passed unremarkably. He remained active as a Presbyterian minister while serving as College President, helping to found the Northern Missionary Society in Albany and serving as Moderator of the General Assembly in 1798.
Smith left Union College in May of 1799, returning to the congregation he left in Pennsylvania four years earlier, only to die during the yellow fever epidemic three months later on August 22.
Following Smith’s departure, Dirck Romeyn, Stephen Bayard and Joseph Yates served as Commissioners in charge of the College until Jonathan Edwards was appointed president.
Condensed from Wayne Somers, compiler and editor, Encyclopedia of Union College History (Schenectady: Union College Press, 2003), page 654.
Image courtesy of Union College, Schaffer Library Special Collections and Archives, Photograph Collection