James George Smith

Who was James George Smith?

James George Smith was one of eight founders of Beta Theta Pi, a prominent college fraternity founded at Miami University in 1839. He was never in good health and after graduating from Miami University in 1840, he became a farmer in the Oakland area of Wilmington, Ohio, and died on September 16, 1849 from what might have been smallpox. He is the only founder of Beta Theta Pi for which a photo does not exist. Samuel Taylor Marshall, one of the other founders of Beta Theta Pi, described Smith as a "...pale, studious, quiet fellow in delicate health." Smith was buried in the Smith family cemetery and reinterred in the Miami Cemetery at Corwin, Ohio in November 1867.