Smith, an investment broker of Philadelphia was an amateur entomologist and botanist, perhaps the best authority of his time on the local flora. He collected extensively in the area, and was elected an Academy member in 1876. Botanically, his most important work was the 240 page unpublished “Flora of Delaware County, Penna,” 1896-1900. Other inclusions embrace field notebooks with records and studies of Craetagus and Cyperus, drawings, letters, a checklist of his personal herbarium, journals of receipts and exchanges of insects and botanical specimens.