Augustine A. Smith

   Augustine Austin Smith was born in Massachusetts in 1806.  He began teaching at age seventeen, in a district school in North Colebrook, Connecticut, at a salary of $10.00 a month - the beginning of sixty years of teaching.

        In 1828 Smith left New England for Austinburgh, Ohio, where he resumed teaching.  He also began to develop an interest in temperance and abolitionist movements.    He married Eliza Cowles in Austinburgh in 1833.   Members of her family were active in the beginnings of the Congregational Church in Ohio and several served as trustees and teachers in higher learning institutions such as Oberlin College.

        A. A. Smith and Eliza Cowles Smith had three sons and a daugher.  One of the sons died in the War Between the States.  Another served for many years as a professor at North Western College.

        Smith became involved with the Evangelical Association in 1857 when he was called to the presidency of Greensburgh Seminary in Summit County, Ohio.  He served at Oberlin College and for twenty years at Grand River Institute in Austinburgh, Ohio.

        He joined the Plainfield College in 1861 as its first president.

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