Smith, William Andrew

Smith, William Andrew, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was born in Fredericksburg, Va., Nov. 29, 1802. He received a good English education in Petersburg, united with the Church at the age of seventeen, and was admitted into the Virginia Conference in February, 1825. In 1833 he became agent for the Randolph Macon College, and afterwards continued to fill the chief stations in his conference until 1846, when he accepted the presidency of the college. This office he held for twenty years, and acted also as professor of rhetoric, logic, and mental and moral philosophy. In 1866 he resigned the presidency, and was transferred to the St. Louis Conference. He was elected president of Central College, Mo., in 1868. In October of the same year he became the subject of a disease that eventually caused his death, March 1, 1870. Mr. Smith was one of the leading minds of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. See Minutes of Annual Conferences of the M.E. Church, South, 1870, p. 479.