Author: Smith, Elias
Biography:
SMITH, Elias (1769-1846: ANBO)
The son of Irene (Ransom) and Stephen Smith, he was born in Lyme CT. In 1782 the family moved to farm near Woodstock in Vermont, where Elias, largely self-taught, started teaching school at nineteen. He joined the Baptist church in 1789 and began a career as an itinerant preacher. Ordained in 1792, he served as pastor to congregations in Salisbury NH (1793-8) and Woburn MA (1798-1801). In 1793 he married Mary Burleigh (1773-1814), with whom he had six children. Dissatisfied with church institutions in general, however, he left Woburn and moved to Portsmouth NH in 1803 to establish an independent "Church of Christ." With Abner Jones (q.v.) he was a leader of the evangelical trend known as the Restoration Movement or the Christian Connection that spread quickly through New England and the founder of its organ, the Herald of Gospel Liberty, in 1808. His wife died in 1814 and later that year he married Rachel Thurber of Providence RI (1789-1865). In 1816 he left Portsmouth and moved his family to Boston, took up the cause of an alternative medicine known as the Thomsonian system, and converted to Universalism. His Herald and series of hymnbooks were continued in Portsmouth by Robert Foster (q.v.). Smith published extensively on behalf of his beliefs, from engagement in newspaper and pamphlet controversy through practical works such as hymnbooks to longer treatises (The Clergyman's Looking-Glass, 1803-4; The American Physician and Family Assistant, 1832). He also wrote an autobiography, The Life, Conversion, Preaching, Travel, and Sufferings of Elias Smith (1816, rev. 1840). In later life he recanted Universalism and was received again by the Christian Connection. He died in Lynn MA and is buried in the North Burial Ground at Providence RI. (ancestry.com 16 Oct. 2021; ANBO 16 Oct. 2021; Appleton)