Titus Smith Jr.

Titus Smith Jr. (4 September 17684 January 1850) was an American-born Canadian farmer, surveyor, botanist, author, and journalist.

Early life and education Titus Smith Jr. was born on 4 September 1768 in Granby, Province of Massachusetts Bay.

He was the eldest child of Rev. Titus Smith and Damaris Nash (née Waite). Titus Smith's father, a Massachusetts native and Yale College graduate, was an itinerant minister with a keen interest in scholarly subjects.

His mother died in 1779 at age 42, leaving four children, when he was only eleven.

As a resident of Nova Scotia, Titus Smith Jr. supported himself through farming and land surveying, a skill he developed in his twenties. Conducting provincial surveys gave him the chance to develop an extensive knowledge of the region's natural history, resources, and various aspects of the fishing industry. The colonial government of Nova Scotia appointed him Overseer of Roads four times between 1808 and 1829.

Halifax Mechanics' Institute In December 1831, he was among the founding members of the Halifax Mechanics' Institute and contributed as a lecturer. With a £15 grant secured from the Nova Scotia House of Assembly in 1833, he facilitated the acquisition of geological, botanical, and mineralogical specimens for its museum.

The naturalist was almost entirely self-taught in every branch of knowledge he possessed.

Smith supported Halifax artist Maria Morris Miller by providing specimens and contributing botanical notes to her 1840 catalog of coloured lithographs titled The Wild Flowers of Nova Scotia.

Appointed secretary of the Central Board of Agriculture (CBA) in 1841, Smith held the role until 1850 and contributed weekly agricultural articles to the Acadian Recorder.

A journal of his 1802 survey is preserved among the Nova Scotia Archives. On the Operations of Fungi in Disintegrating Vegetable Substance (1830–31) A List of the Principal Indigenous Plants of Nova Scotia (1830–31) Conclusions on the Results on the Vegetation of Nova Scotia (1835) A Lecture on the Mineralogy and the Geology of Nova Scotia (1836)