Philander Smith

Philander Smith (November 23, 1809 – February 24, 1882) was an American real estate agent and philanthropist.

Among the early settlers at Oak Park, Illinois, Smith and wife Adeline provided financial assistance to Methodist missions in India, China, and Japan.

Smith died in Oak Park on February 24, 1882, and was buried at Forest Home Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois.

[1] His widow Adeline continued to give away his $125,000 fortune to a number of causes for a dozen years after his death.

Her gift that year to the Methodists' Walden Seminary in Little Rock, Arkansas resulted in its immediate renaming as Philander Smith College.