Eleanor Houston Smith

Eleanor Houston Smith ( Houston; 1910 – August 29, 1987) was an American conservationist and philanthropist. Her organic beef farm served as an early example of how modern, sustainable agricultural practices could prevent harm to Maine's coast and wildlife, and her donations along Maine's coastline created nature preserves and recreational areas that are still in use today. She was her parents' only child together, but she had one step-brother and two step-sisters from her father's previous marriage to Edith Atlee. She grew up with her parents and siblings in Druim Moir, her paternal grandparents' estate in Philadelphia's Chestnut Hill neighborhood.

Houston married Lawrence M. C. Smith on February 23, 1933, in the neighborhood she grew up in at the Church of St. Martin-in-the-Fields. They remained in Philadelphia, but spent their summers at their second house in Freeport, Maine. Smith and her husband had six children: Sarah (Sallie), Eleanor, Sam, Meredith, Minie, and Lewis. At the time of her death, Smith had 15 grandchildren.

The Smiths cared about public access to land and preserving Maine's meadows and shores just as much as they cared about Maine's agricultural future, so they created their farm to demonstrate how less invasive farming practices could preserve the landscape and its beauty. Since opening in 1965, the property now known as the Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education has become a natural sanctuary in an otherwise urban landscape. The Maine Audubon Society opened the Mast Landing Audubon Sanctuary on the donated land in 1967.

Smith also donated her vast geography resource collection to the University of Southern Maine. She and her husband enjoyed learning about history and geography, particularly related to Maine's coastline, and that interest led to an accumulation of geography tools. In 1986, she donated their collection of 458 sheet maps, 685 atlases and books and 62 globes to the university. These works are held in the Osher Map Library, where they can be used as educational resources for students. Death and legacy Smith died on August 29, 1987, in Portland, Maine, at 77 years old. In 1992, her five living children donated the Smith-Houston-Ogden-Morris Papers to the American Philosophical Society, a collection of documents related to the Smith family and the families associated with them amounting to nearly 350 linear feet. The documents include wills, marriage certificates, genealogies, photographs, financial accounts, letters, illustrations and photographs from the 1650s to the 1980s.