Dr. George Smith: Delaware County's Doctor-Senator-Historian
Near Wilmington, Pennsylvania
Few nineteenth-century Pennsylvania figures wore as many hats as Dr. George Smith. A physician by training, Smith arrived at the Collenbrook estate in eighteen twenty-nine when he married Mary Lewis, heir to this old Delaware County property.
From that base he built a career that crossed medicine, law, science, and politics. He co-founded the Delaware County Institute of Science and served as a state senator, where his most lasting act was helping shape the eighteen thirty-six school law that built on the state's eighteen thirty-four free school act. That legislation strengthened free common schooling across the Commonwealth.
He also wrote the eighteen sixty-two History of Delaware County, which remains a standard reference on the region's early settlement. Delaware County's public schools owe a great deal to a country doctor who happened to chair the right committee.
