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John Blair Smith was born June 12, 1756 in Pequea, Pennsylvania. His mother Elizabeth was the sister of Samuel and John Blair who were the first two ministers of Fagg’s Manor Presbyterian Church (currently Manor Presbyterian Church). The newborn Smith was named for his uncle John Blair. Early in his life John showed an insatiable hunger for knowledge that was fed through the academy operated by his father Robert Smith and his considerable library. He came to know Christ at the age of fourteen. Two years later he entered the junior class of the College of New Jersey (Princeton University) then graduated in 1773 second in his class of twenty nine and was one of fourteen who would go on to become ministers. The title of John’s salutatory discourse was “The Excellence and Benefit of Laws.” One of Smith’s classmates who would become a minister was William Graham who would found Liberty Academy (Washington and Lee University) as well as mentor the first professor of Princeton Seminary, Archibald Alexander.
In 1775 the academy that would come to be named Hampden-Sydney College was founded by the Presbytery of Hanover in Prince Edward County, Virginia. John’s elder brother Samuel Stanhope Smith was its president and he proposed that his brother John be appointed the first assistant instructor in the college. John was licensed by the Presbytery of Hanover in the Tinkling Spring Church, April 29, 1777, and then ordained on October 26, 1779. At the same meeting of presbytery during which John was examined for ordination, Samuel resigned the academy presidency in order to become Professor of Moral Philosophy at the College of New Jersey. John was quickly appointed to succeed his brother as president of Hampden-Sydney. In conjunction with his work at the college, Samuel pastored both the Cumberland and Briery congregations, so likewise John accepted calls to the two churches. In 1783, the academy officially became Hampden-Sydney College with John B. Smith continuing as its president.
During the Hampden-Sydney years President Smith increasingly was sought as a visiting worship leader. In some cases, the preaching opportunities were at considerable distances requiring him to take additional time away from campus for travel. Some of his friends and colleagues believed his extended pulpit ministry was a distraction from the needs of the college, which was increasingly depending solely on student tuition to pay the bills but sorely needing donations to survive and improve its programs. The problem was that John B. Smith believed his first duty was to preach, so his responsibilities to Hampden-Sydney sometimes fell by the wayside as secondary concerns. Also, in 1787 there was a revival on campus and in the vicinity that increased Smith’s involvement in preaching and pulled him from his duties as president. One of those influenced through a combination of the revival and a visit from Drury Lacy was Nash Le Grand. Torn between preaching and the college, Smith resigned the presidency in 1789 in order to give himself wholly to pulpit ministry in his own congretations as well as others as needed. For twelve years he pastored the Briery Church every-other week with the intervening weeks served in Cumberland Church. He bought a small farm near the college for the family residence.
The churches which Smith served were becoming dissatisfied with his ministry in a way similar to the discontent that led to his resignation from Hampden-Sydney. His congregations believed that his speaking and preaching engagements conflicted with pastoral responsibilities to his own church members. The growing discontent combined with his strapped finances due to an inadequate salary induced him, once again, to think of new opportunities.
In April 1791, Pastor Smith was appointed a commissioner by the Presbytery of Hanover to the General Assembly convening in Philadelphia. It was often the case during the sessions that visiting minister commissioners were invited to preach in local churches. Smith was invited to expound the Word in Third Church, also known as Pine Street Church, which at the time was seeking a new pastor. His sermons were enthusiastically received by the congregation and in short order it met and voted to offer him a pastoral call, which was accepted. When news of the situation made its way to his congregants in Virginia, they were greatly concerned to keep him. The churches did all they could to block his departure. He relocated to Philadelphia in the fall and was installed by the Presbytery of Philadelphia December 22, 1791. Pastor Smith served the congregation for about four years during which time it became necessary to increase the sanctuary seating through the addition of balconies.
Beginning in July 1793 the United States suffered a yellow fever epidemic that hit with a vengeance in the temporary capital city of the nation in Philadelphia. For about three months the horrid plague killed many in the capital as well as other cities. The appearance of the disease had been observed by local physicians including the city’s greatest one, Benjamin Rush. At one point Rush was summoned for consultation by fellow physician Hugh Hodge whose daughter had died of the disease. Dr. Hodge was the father of Charles Hodge who would grow up to teach in Princeton Seminary. John Blair Smith ministered to those afflicted with yellow fever not only in his congregation but also others within the city. He also helped with the monumental task of funerals for the 5,000 that died. Pastor Smith continued in the Pine Street Church even though other congregations were not having services. The many hours spent helping the fever victims contributed greatly to the wearing down of Smith’s constitution such that he resigned his call to recuperate and be strengthened. His call was dissolved by presbytery October 13, 1795.
To improve his health Rev. Smith relocated nearly 250 miles north to Schenectady, New York, where he became the first president of Union College. One might think a relocation for improved health would be in the South, but his concern may have been avoiding another yellow fever epidemic. Interest in establishing a college in Schenectady began as early as 1779, but it was not until 1795 that an institution was organized and chartered by the state of New York. John Blair Smith was selected its first president.
It was during the Union College years that a young Congregationalist minister named Eliphalet Nott spent a night with the Smiths while travelling. As they conversed, Smith and Nott agreed that the only point separating the Congregationalist and Presbyterian Churches was what they believed to be the “nonessential” issue of church government. Citing E. H. Gillett, Jacob H. Patton in his A Popular History of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America has suggested that the chat in the Smith home seeded what would become the Plan of Union in 1801 that united the Congregationalists and Presbyterians in a what was intended to be limited alliance for the purpose of missions and evangelism (238-239). Smith continued his work in Union College until his resignation in 1799.
Since Smith moved to Schenectady, the pastoral search for a replacement at Pine Street despite considerable effort could not locate a pastor. A call was issued to Archibald Alexander who graciously turned it down despite the persistence of the church. When John B. Smith left Old Pine Street he had told them that if his health improved he would be willing to return for a renewed call. The congregation voted unanimously to call him in August 1798, but he was not installed by presbytery until June 27, 1799. Unfortunately, along with Smith’s return to Philadelphia that summer there was also a return of yellow fever. After less than two months of renewed ministry in Philadelphia, John Blair Smith died of yellow fever August 22, 1799. He was only forty-three years old. His funeral service was led by his cousin and fellow minister, Samuel Blair (1741-1799), who delivered “A Funeral Discourse Occasioned by the Death of Rev. John Blair Smith, D.D.,” in remembrance of his friend and kinsman. Pastor Smith was buried in the Pine Street Church cemetery. John had married Elizabeth Nash of Templeton, Virginia, April 9, 1779, and they had six children including five sons and one daughter.
In 1795 the College of New Jersey honored him with the Doctor of Divinity. It appears that his only published work related to ministry is The Enlargement of Christ’s Kingdom, the Object of a Christian’s Prayers and Exertions, A Discourse Delivered in the Dutch Church, in Albany, Before the Northern Missionary Society in the State of New York, at their Organization, Feb. 14, 1797, Schenectady, 1797, which used the words, “Thy kingdom come,” from Matthew 6:10 for its Scripture. He also had political interests including correspondence with government personalities. For the full list including PDF downloads, see Log College Press, “John Blair Smith (1756-1799).” Smith was moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church that met in Albany in 1798. He was unable to attend as retiring moderator the 1799 Assembly in Winchester, Virginia, so John McKnight delivered a sermon in his place from 2 Corinthians 2:16, “Who is sufficient for these things?” Smith’s elder brother Samuel S. Smith was elected moderator of the 1799 General Assembly.
Barry Waugh
Notes—John Blair and Samuel Stanhope Smith had another brother who was a minister, William Richmond Smith. The header photograph of Briery Church was taken by the author; the church is in Prince Edward County and is one of four designed by Robert L. Dabney–see Sean M. Lucas, Dabney, 250 n 7. Union College has a color portrait at John Blair Smith. To read about a yellow fever epidemic in Norfolk, Virginia, see the biography of George D. Armstrong, 1813-1899 on Presbyterians of the Past. The Third Presbyterian Church, which was known as the Pine Street Church in Smith’s day is often called the Old Pine Street Church. Sources used include: William B. Sprague, editor, Annals of the American Pulpit; or Commemorative Notices of Distinguished American Clergymen, volume 3, published in New York by Robert Carter & Brothers, 1858; Andrew Van Vranken Raymond’s Union University: Its History, Influence, Characteristics, and Equipment, vol. 1; Richard A. Harrison’s, Princetonians: 1769-1775; A Manual for the Members of Briery Presbyterian Church, Virginia, compiled by James W. Douglas and published by order of the session, Richmond, 1828, as reprinted by Mrs. Robert Burett Oliver, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, 1907; Hughes Oliphant Gibbons, A History of Old Pine Street, Being the Record of an Hundred and Forty Years in the Life of a Colonial Church, Philadelphia, 1905; and Union College: A Record of the Commemoration, June Twenty-First to Twenty-Seventh, 1895, of the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Founding of Union College, Including a Sketch of its History, New York, 1897. Information on the yellow fever epidemics was located in Philadelphia: A 300 Year History edited by Russell F. Weigley, Nicholas B. Wainwright, and Edwin Wolf, II, New York and London, 1982, which is a nicely done resource for the city’s more than three-hundred years of history.
