Alexander Smets

Alexander Augustus Smets (October 12, 1795 – May 9, 1862) was a French-born co-founder of the Georgia Historical Society in Savannah, Georgia, United States. A banker and philanthropist, he was also a large landowner in Georgia and one of the state's wealthiest people.

Life and career

Smets was born in 1795, in Nantes, France, the son of Barthelemy Martin Smets, a native of Mechelen, Belgium, and Jean Marie Antoinette.

At the age of eighteen, he was enlisted in the French Army and was stationed at La Rochelle. He was promoted to lieutenant, such was his dedication to the role he was initially given, but the war ended before he could serve in the role. in which he became a close friend of Israel Keech Tefft. It is now named Morris Hall, part of the Savannah College of Art and Design. He also became a large land-owner, including a plantation on Hutchinson Island in the Savannah River. He was also a slave owner.

On November 2, 1859, Smets was elected a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society.

Death Smets died in 1862, in Indian Springs, Georgia, after a short illness. He was 66. He was initially buried, on May 11, in Savannah's Laurel Grove Cemetery. On March 6, 1919, his (and the rest of his family's) remains were removed from the Smets Vault to Bonaventure Cemetery, where he is now interred alongside his wife, who predeceased him by eight years.