Biography:

Smith was an editor and librarian, an entrepreneur who founded the Pennsylvania Gazette.  Smith attended the Friends' boarding school at Westtown, Pennsylvania , and was given some courses in languages at an early age. He was then apprenticed to a druggist in Philadelphia.  After a brief partnership with Solomon Temple in the wholesale drug business, he entered business on his own account.  He was active in the establishment of a line of Conestoga wagons, operating as regular carriers between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, but the enterprise was short-lived.  In 1827, in partnership with George Taylor, he inaugurated the Pennsylvania Gazette.  Two years later he became librarian of the Library Company of Philadelphia; he was a hereditary trustee of the Loganian Library, one of its component parts.  Through his taste and industry, he gathered for the institution a large collection of autographs and manuscripts relating to the history of New Jersey and Pennsylvania.