I802] REV. WILLIAM SMITH, D. D. ^.t^ 



my failing sight, in reading and correcting the proof sheets, especially 

 those taken from the manuscript copies. 



He has taken the risk of the publication upon himself, and I hope 

 those friends who yet remain alive, who formerly lent their names to 

 encourage the work (many of them being, alas ! now no more), were 

 influenced by other motives than the expectation of seeing their names 

 prefixed to a book, in a subscription list ; and that whatever favor they 

 intended towards me may be transferred to my publisher, who, being 

 worthy of success, I pray he may be blest with it in every liberal and 

 just undertaking. 



I have given in an Appendix* a list of such things of Dr. 

 Smith as I either know or suppose to be his, which were pub- 

 lished in his lifetime, from the year 1750 to the year 1803. 



In September of this year Mrs. Williamina Cadwalader, writing 

 from the Falls of Schuylkill to her aunt, Mrs. Ridgely, of Dover, 

 says: 



Dr. Smith is near his end. On last Sunday he preached for St. 

 John's Parish, in the city. I was with him, as he would have me, being 

 afraid to go with his servant alone. I do not think he will ever preach 

 again, at least not with my consent. 



This, I have reason to think, was the last sermon which Dr. 

 Smith ever preached. The church now called St. John's Church, 

 Northern Liberties, was not admitted into the convention of the 

 Protestant Episcopal Church of Pennsylvania until 18 16, nor or- 

 ganized in form until 18 1 5, when the Rev. George Boyd, D. D., 

 was its rector. But the parish had a history much earlier than this; 

 so far back as June, 1772, Dr. Smith interesting himself in origi- 

 nating the identical parish which forty-three years afterwards took 

 corporate shape. f 



* See Appendix, No. X. 



j- This fact is made patent by a document in Mr. Robert Coulton Davis's possession. 

 It is a receipt, dated January 20, 1787, by "J. Booth," who promises to return it to Dr. 

 Smith "at the town of New Castle," for a document described as in these words : 



June nth. 

 Whereas a certain lottery, called the Wilmington Lotteiy, in two classes, is set on 

 foot for raising £2,i,%\ Pennsylvania money, in which Richard McWilliam, Esq., and 

 Messrs. Jonas Stedham, George Evans and Joseph Stedham, of New Castle county, 

 are managers, who, it is declared in the scheme of the said lottery, that the money to 

 be raised thereby is to be divided as follows, viz. : Five-sixths of the net profits towards 

 the building and finishing St. John's Church, in the jVorthern Liberties of the city of 

 Philadelphia, and the remaining sixth part for public uses within the county of New 

 Castle, under the direction of the said managers, and of Rev. Dr. Richard Peters, Rev. 



