Eli Smith

Eli Smith (September 13, 1801 – January 11, 1857) was an American Protestant missionary and scholar.

Biography Smith was born in Northford, Connecticut, to Eli and Polly (née Whitney) Smith. He graduated from Yale College in 1821 and from Andover Theological Seminary in 1826. He worked in Malta until 1829, then in company with H. G. O. Dwight traveled through Armenia and Georgia to Persia. They published their observations, Missionary Researches in Armenia, in 1833 in two volumes. Smith settled in Beirut in 1833. The following year his wife Sarah opened the first girls’ school in Lebanon, while William McClure Thomson opened a boy’s seminary in Beirut. He went on to pursue the task which he considered to be his life's work: translation of the Bible into Arabic. He worked on this with the Arabic scholar and poet, Nasif al-Yaziji. He married Mehitable "Hetty" Simkins Butler on October 7, 1846, in Northampton, Massachusetts.

His daughter Mary Elizabeth Smith was educated at the female seminaries in Hartford, Connecticut, and Ipswich, Massachusetts, and taught at the Female Seminary at Mt. Auburn, Cincinnati. She was listed In the Women's Who's Who of America in 1914–15.

Publications Smith’s books include; Missionary Researches in Armenia (2 vols. Boston, 1833) Missionary Sermons and Addresses (1833)