Smith, Elias

Smith, Elias (1769–1846) Protestant clergyman, author; born in Lyme, Conn. He had little formal education but studied the Bible on his own, joined the Baptist Church and was an itinerant preacher in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. In 1808 he established the Herald of Gospel Liberty, the first religious weekly in the U.S.A. He sold the paper in 1818, rejected Calvinist doctrine, and became a Universalist. Rejecting this in turn, he became interested in physical rather than spiritual health and joined forces with a physician to establish a successful private sanatorium.